On providing a Blockchain-based reverse supply chain traceability of agrochemicals

Agrochemicals are often used to produce higher crop production rates; however, malicious misuse could cause environmental damage and health problems for both consumers and farmers. Furthermore, despite the increased control of agrochemicals through a regulated reverse supply chain, these products are also vulnerable to theft due to their high financial value. Today, no initiatives in the literature securely approach the problem of tracing agrochemicals along with the stakeholders, joining actions done by manufacturers, farmers, government, and return centers. This article presents the design, architecture, and prototype evaluation of a Blockchain based system for pervasive agrochemical traceability within reverse logistics chains (Agrochemicals Pervasive Traceability Model - APTM), keeping up with agrochemicals along their route on the reverse logistic chain. APTM uses Blockchain technology to monitor eventual illegal activities, generating value for producers that operate strictly within the law. Our contributions are: (i) a gamification mechanism for producers that play the APTM rules; (ii) an architecture composed of modules, functionalities, interconnections, and rules to manage the agrochemical flow. APTM comprises five parts: authentication, route control, Blockchain recording, statistics, notification, and gamification. At the prototype level, our solution achieved a rate of 4,6 transactions per second and a monthly operating cost of approximately US$40.00. Experimental results obtained from prototype simulations demonstrated the system’s ability to maintain 4.6 transactions per second (TPS), validate actor permissions, and manage data persistence across Blockchain, in addition to providing an online agrochemical data visualization along the reverse supply chain.