Objective:

• One of the biggest reasons behind the growth of fake products in the agrochemical industry is the lack of knowledge about genuine products among consumers. Illiterate farmers usually do not check the product authentication features and just go for the cheap price.
• Rare adoption of anti-counterfeiting solutions by companies: Many agrochemical manufacturers do not implement anti-counterfeiting solutions in their products. This makes their products highly susceptible to duplication, tampering and even diversion.
• Lack of stringent regulatory measures: Lack of strict regulatory measures against counterfeit products and poor laws against counterfeiters has led to the rapid rise of counterfeit agro-chemical products.

Image courtesy: http://www.businessworld.in/article/Agriculture-Some-Pest-Killers-Have-Stings/17-04-2019-169465/

Image courtesy: http://www.businessworld.in/article/Agriculture-Some-Pest-Killers-Have-Stings/17-04-2019-169465/

“Unmonitored use of these toxic chemicals has led to soil degradation, ground and surface water contamination, endangering export of grain and horticulture products from India.” A study by the Union Ministry of Consumer Affairs shows that about 58 per cent of agricultural inputs in use are fake. “I am afraid counterfeit and illegal agrochemical products in the Indian market is increasing year by year, ”

Challenge: Develop an easily accessible solution for farmers that can provide detailed product-specific information, their usage, and the delivery details, and help them increase productivity and profitability.

Implementation and Application:

Our idea is to bring a secure de-centralized, tamperproof unified blockchain ledger with a secure authentication device protocol to streamline all manufacturers and logistics data. The device sends and updates the following data to the ledger:

• location
• temp&humidity
• seal/packet opened or not
• tinyML based condition status (For instance, if there is a sudden change in temperature that would damage the goods - abnormal environmental conditions during transit of agrochemicals like pesticides can result in separation of active ingredients, a notification is sent that triggers an action to resolve the situation.)
• Using the device ID barcode, the farmer can scan and get to know all details, in fact, it would be one time process to onboard the farmer to the Blockchain ledger, the product ID barcode would serve as farmer login and it would allow him to trace and lodge complain in case of any unsatisfactory results.

“Being illiterate, farmers are usually unable to differentiate between original and spurious products and are often duped. This is not only affecting our sales but is also posing a challenge to the farmers’ trust in genuine products that have gained popularity and recognition over the years.”

Problems to be solved by our implementation:

• Used on a variety of products - Information will be presented on the packaging. (Taking into account a variety of products (crop protection and seeds) and packaging (eg bags, 250ml, 20L, etc).
• Customers can scan/read and interact with the Digital Label
• Provides simple and actionable information about seeds, traits, and crop protection products
• Uses scannable resources like QR codes to provide information about the product (nutrients and pesticides) like geography, dosage, applicability, authenticity, usage, and disposal guidelines
• Supports customer feedback, and complaints - Customers can communicate with the company regarding a specific product
• Can create a dynamic label that can be adjusted to cover important legal requirements like safety statements and product identification information
• Product traceability (localization and expected delivery date- information flow from farmer to customers)
• Provides product security, or anti-counterfeiting – Making sure that the...