CropInF: Blockchain Enabled Crop Insurance Framework for Natural Disasters

Blockchain has gained considerable attention in the insurance sector to protect policyholders from fraud. Limited work is explored in crop insurance using Blockchain, Edge Computing, and the Internet of Things (IoT) to benefit farmers under natural disasters. In this context, this paper proposes an architecture for crop insurance called Blockchain Enabled Crop Insurance Framework (CropInF) for natural disasters. In the CropInF framework, the IoT devices sense the agricultural fieldl/and information, the Edge Compute Node processes off-chain data, and the Blockchain automates insurance claim processes using smart contracts. The proposed framework is designed and implemented on the Hyperledger Besu Blockchain using IBFT 2.0 consensus. Further, smart contracts-based results are generated, and a table-based comparison is given to indicate the advantages of the proposed framework over state-of-the-art works. Finally, the paper concludes that the proposed framework brings transparency, trust, and automation for farmers when buying crop insurance for their agricultural land.