Making Food Healthier: Regenerative Agriculture and Blockchain

As the food and beverage industry continues to explore and develop healthy and sustainable products, there are two innovations that are aiding the process: regenerative agriculture and blockchain technology. Regenerative agriculture is the focus on maintaining soil health and mineral content in a bid to grow healthier crops, thereby limiting the need for chemical fertilizers. And blockchain technology focuses on enabling greater traceability from the food’s source to the consumer’s plate. Here we outline the vast positive impacts of both of these technologies in terms of making the food industry healthier and more transparent.

The Power of Regenerative Agriculture

Deforestation and soil degradation are some of the most negative consequences of current agricultural practices employed the world over. As Regeneration International states “Without protecting and regenerating the soil on our 4 billion acres of cultivated farmland, 8 billion acres of pastureland, and 10 billion acres of forest land, it will be impossible to feed the world, keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius, or halt the loss of biodiversity”. But despite agriculture’s enormous history of environmental damage, it also has a profound capacity to heal the environment, which is where regenerative agriculture comes in. Its practices don’t just “do no harm” they actively improve and revitalize the soil, and thereby bring a positive impact to the environment. The term regenerative agriculture began to be used in the late 1980’s in reference to agricultural systems that step beyond ideas of sustainability, and towards active regeneration.

The process itself describes farming practices with a number of benefits. Among these benefits are reversing climate change, restoring degraded soil biodiversity, and rebuilding the organic matter of soil – which results in carbon drawdown, a vast improvement of the water cycle process, and food which is healthier and more nutrient-rich for consumers to enjoy. 

The Impact of Block Chain Technology

When looking once more at food industry the status quo, the wasteful way we produce foods leads to losses which are predicted to reach about $6 trillion by 2050. Excess waste is arguably one of the greatest issues facing the industry. Just like the rising focus on regenerative agriculture, blockchain technology is also poised to have a huge impact. 

The simplest understanding of blockchain is a database that maintains a constantly growing list of records, referred to as blocks. It’s a ledger, which captures transaction data between to entities in a permanent, accessible and verifiable way.  This data includes information on ingredient origin and other critical information to most accurately operate a supply chain. Blockchain can have a huge impact throughout the food and beverage industry. The ability to instantaneously trace the entire lifecycle of products from their origin through every point of contact on their journey in a process referred to as “from farm to fork”, bolsters a company’s credibility, safety and efficiency.

Blockchain technology, such as that employed by Cashmere, dramatically improves the ability to immediately pinpoint potential sources of contamination, and therefore efficiently prevent or rectify any contamination issues.  With food safety remaining a top concern for both regulators and consumers, it’s easy to see why so many food and beverage manufactures are investing in the powers of this technology.

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