Blockchain Traceability Adoption in Agricultural Supply Chain Coordination: An Evolutionary Game Analysis

• Published in: Agriculture (Basel) Vol. 13; no. 1; p. 184
• Main Authors: Zheng, Yi, Xu, Yaoqun, Qiu, Zeguo
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Basel MDPI AG 01.01.2023
• Subjects: agri-foods traceability; Agricultural equipment; Agricultural industry; Agricultural products; Agricultural research; Agricultural technology; Agriculture; Behavior; Bibliometrics; Blockchain; blockchains; Costs; Cryptography; Decision making; Efficiency; farms; Financial services; Food safety; Food supply; Fraud; Game theory; Literature reviews; Mathematical models; Processors; Punishment; Radio frequency identification; Rationality; Reagents; Reinforcement; simulation analysis; Suppliers; supply chain; supply chain management; Supply chains; Sustainable agriculture; traceability
• ISSN: 2077-0472; 2077-0472
• DOI: 10.3390/agriculture13010184

Blockchain technology has brought about profound revolutions in supply chain management. Notably, in the agricultural sector, blockchain-based traceability has become an essential tool to maintain the safety and quality of farm commodities. However, the implementation of blockchain technology in agricultural traceability is not prevalent. In this paper, mathematical modeling and simulation methods were used to investigate the decision making regarding the adoption of blockchain traceability in agriculture, which comprises producers, processors, and governments. This paper provides further analysis of the optimal blockchain-based traceability strategies of the members of the agricultural product supply chain in different scenarios. The results reveal the following: (1) Producers and processors should manage the traceability costs for adopting blockchains to improve their brand image and gain more benefits. (2) The government should encourage supply chain agents to participate in traceability by establishing an effective reward-and-punishment mechanism. In addition, the research will help agricultural supply chain agents to design strategies to implement traceability in agriculture and create a transparent and efficient data-driven agricultural products supply chain. Furthermore, these findings provide guidance to policymakers to develop policies to accelerate the implementation of blockchain-based traceability systems to guarantee fraud-free and sustainable agricultural supply chains.