Western Australia’s CBH Group — which is owned by around 4200 WA grain growers — has partnered with startup AgriDigital for a pilot that will test the potential of blockchain to offer an efficiency boost for grains handling.
CBH group that announced a blockchain pilot will go live this month at subsidiary Blue Lake Milling in South Australia.
“The objectives are to prove the application of blockchain in providing full supply chain traceability, and executing the settlement of commodities on a blockchain by matching title transfer to payment in a single transaction,” CBH said.
“The potential of blockchain to increase efficiency and trust throughout agri-supply chains is broad, including providing back office cost savings, creating digital title to commodities, removing double data entry, proving a clear chain of custody and supporting full traceability of commodities,” AgriDigital CEO Emma Weston said.
“Through the pilot, CBH and AgriDigital are not only proving out blockchain technology, but we are demonstrating that a startup and a large player in the grains industry can work together and collaborate to solve problems,” Weston said.
In December last year, AgriDigital announced it had “executed the world’s first-ever live settlement of a physical commodity on a blockchain between a grower and a buyer”.
That trial involved the startup’s SaaS platform and a multi-node private Ethereum blockchain network. Details of the trial were featured in Data61’s Risks and Opportunities for Systems Using Blockchain and Smart Contracts report, which was released in June.
Some of Australia’s biggest enterprises are undertaking pilots involving blockchain.
ANZ, Westpac, IBM and Scentre Group, which owns and operates and Westfield in Australia and New Zealand, last month revealed they had collaborated on a proof-of-concept project using blockchain-inspired distributed ledger technology (DLT) to underpin a bank guarantee.
NAB and the Commonwealth Bank have also experimented with DLT.
Later this year the ASX is expected to announce whether DLT can replace CHESS, which provides post-trade services for the exchange.
Blackmores and Australia post have backed a project by e-commerce giant Alibaba to combat counterfeit and fraudulent food products using blockchain.