On May 15th, Theo de Jager, President of the World Farmers’ Organisation, was in Brussels to take part in the debate on how to make farmers better off in the value chain through technology within the context of the latest Brussels Development Briefing on “The opportunities of blockchain for agriculture”.
The event, co-organised by the ACP-EU Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation(CTA), in collaboration with the European Commission(DG DEVCO), the ACP Secretariat, Concord and BMZ, is one of a series of sessions on key issues and challenges for rural development that are regularly organized in the context of EU-ACP cooperation.
The event provided an overview of the opportunities and challenges in adopting the blockchain technology in agriculture and the agri-food industry across several sectors and looked at the best practices and successful applications of the blockchain technology of interest to the ACP countries.
“The nature of the chain has changed; companies will not remain in business if don’t keep up with new technologies. Agriculture in Africa, for example, does not load the investment it should because of trust.
We need credibility to attract investors. We need to track. We have high hopes the blockchain technology can enhance the trustability which is needed”, affirmed Theo De Jager during his speech.