Scalable Blockchain Technology for Tracking the Provenance of the Agri-Food

Abstract

Due to an increase in agricultural mislabeling and carelesshandling of non-perishable foods in recent years, consumers have been calling for the food sector to be more transparent. Due to information dispersion between divisions and the propensity to record inaccurate data, current traceability solutions typically fail to provide reliable farm-to-fork histories ofproducts. The three most enticing characteristics of blockchain technology areopenness, integrity, and traceability, which make it a potentially crucial tool for guaranteeing the integrity and correctness of data. In this paper, we suggest a permissioned blockchain system run by organizations, such as regulatory bodies, to promote the origin-tracking of shelf-stable agricultural products. We propose a four-tiered architecture, parallel side chains, Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKPs), and Interplanetary File Systems (IPFS). These ensure that information about where an item came from is shared, those commercial competitors cannot get to it, those big storage problems are handled, and the system can be scaled to handle many transactions at once. Thesolution maintains the confidentiality of all transaction flows whenprovenance data is queried utilizing smart contracts and a consumer-grade reliance rate. Extensive simulation testing using Ethereum Rinkeby and Polygon demonstrates reduced execution time, latency, and throughput overheads.