Improved distribution and food safety for beef processing and management using a blockchain-tracer support framework

Abstract

Agriculture has since become a major source of livelihood for Nigerians. It also  accounts  for  over  85%  of  the  total  food  consumed  within  her  borders. The  sector  has  maintained  improved  productivity  and profitability  via  a concerted effort to address critical issues such as anunorganized regulatory system,  lack  of  food  safety  data,  no  standards  in  agricultural  produce, non-adaptation  to  precision  farming, and non-harmony  via  inventory  trace supports. This study proposes blockchain-based trace-support in a continued effort to ensure food quality, consumer safety, and trading of food assets. It uses  the  radiofrequency  identification (RFID)sensor  to  register  and  track livestocks,  farms/farmers,  and  abattoir  processes  as  well  as  provisions  a databank to trace livestock data. Results show the model adequately perform about  1,101transactions  per seconds with  a  response  time  of  0.21s  for queries and 0.28s for https pages respectively for 2,500users. Also, it yields a  slightly  longer  time  of  0.32s  for  queries  and  0.38s  for  https  pages respectively with an increased 5,000users via the world-state as stored in the blockchain’s hyper-fabric ledger.Overall, the framework can directly query and retrieve  data  without  it  traversing  the  whole  ledger.  This,  in  turn, improves the efficiency and effectiveness of the traceability system.