松乐日志 2017 Week＃52

区块链技术造福食品和农业领域

Blockchain Technology Can Benefit Food and Agriculture

今年的重大事件之一是由“区块链技术” (BCT) 所支持的比特币等加密货币的崛起。现在我们简要地看看BCT及其对食品和农业的潜在效果和影响，特别是它如何能够具体影响到供应链，以及在农业粮食产业链中应用BCT需要什么。

One of this year’s big stories has been the rise of crypto-curriencies such as Bitcoin enabled by what is known as ‘blockchain technology’ (BCT). Here we would like to briefly look at BCT and its potential usefulness and implications for food and agriculture, especially how it can impact specific aspects of supply chains and what is needed to apply BCT in agri-food chains.

但首先要谈谈BCT，BCT不是单一的技术，它融合了计算机科学和商业应用方面具有相当历史的技术。这些组件技术包括公钥/私钥加密、加密哈希函数、数据库技术特别是分布式数据库、协商一致算法和分散式处理。其根本目的是在分布式分散数据库的领域中实现数据库的一致性和完整性。

But first a word about BCT. BCT is not a single technology. BCT uses a combination of technologies that have a considerable history in computer science and in commercial applications. These component technologies include public/private key cryptography, cryptographic hash functions, database technologies especially distributed databases, consensus algorithms, and decentralised processing. The fundamental purpose is to achieve database consistency and integrity in a context of a distributed decentralised database.

BCT的关键技术选择包括：1) 是否需要权限才能访问区块链；2) 如何将新的区块加入区块链；3) 是否将区块链作为虚拟机，用于代表业务流程的程序运行；4) 是否使用加密货币。

Key technical choices of BCT include: 1) Whether permission is needed to access the blockchain; 2) Choice of how a new block is added to the blockchain; 3) Whether to use the blockchain as a virtual machine where programs representing business processes are run; 4) Whether or not to use cryptocurrency.

对于BCT的实现，技术的选择往往取决于生态系统参与者的管理模式。那么BCT如何才能与食品和农业产生关联？

For BCT implementation, technical choices often result from the governance model chosen for the ecosystem of participants. So how can BCT be relevant to food and agriculture?

社会大众对食品信息的更多需求日益增加，这反映出透明度亟待提高和信任的缺乏。与此同时，越来越多的食品和饮料成为品牌，并伴随着各种认证措施，这些措施往往带有欺诈（出售贴有合格证或者宣称高品质的不合格产品）和掺假的风险。

An increasing demand in society for greater information about food reflects the need for more transparency and the lack of trust. At the same time, more and more food products and beverages are branded and accompanied by a variety of certification schemes, which carry a risk of fraud (selling unqualified product with high-quality labels or claims) and adulteration.

在目前情况下，大部分合规性数据和信息由受信任的第三方进行审核，并存储在书面或集中式数据库中，这些方法已经确知会遭受诸如高成本和书面流程的效率低下以及书面和IT系统中的欺诈、损坏和错误等许多信息问题。

In the current situation, much of the compliance data and information is audited by trusted third parties and stored either on paper or in a centralised database and these approaches are known to suffer from many informational problems such as the high cost and inefficiency of paper-based processes and fraud, corruption and error both on paper and in IT systems.

这些信息问题表明，目前的透明度和信任机制未能解决有时甚至加剧了农业食品产业链透明度和信任度过低的问题，对食品安全和质量构成了持续性的严重威胁。特别是食品质量诚信已成为众所关注的问题。

These information problems, indicating that current transparency and trust systems have not been able to solve or at times even have exacerbated the problems of low transparency and trust in agri-food chains, pose a severe threat to food safety, food quality, and sustainability. In particular, food integrity has become a major concern.

食品诚信是指在物理和数字层面的食品价值链中的公平和真实，其中数字层面应当提供可靠及可信的信息，来表明物理层面的食品原产地和来源。

Food integrity refers to the fairness and authenticity of food in food value chains both at the physical layer and the digital layer, where the digital layer should provide reliable and trustworthy information on the origin and provenance of food products in the physical layer.

区块链技术提供了一种方法以确保记录的永久性，方便食品价值链中不同参与者之间的数据共享。这可能会导致促进食品供应链透明度和信任度的令人兴奋的模式转变，以确保食品质量诚信。

Blockchain technology provides a means to ensure permanence of records and potentially to facilitate the sharing of data between disparate actors in a food value chain. This potential may lead to an exciting paradigm shift facilitating transparency and trust in food chains that ensures food integrity.

此外，BCT可以帮助消费者了解种植者是否获得了从农田到餐桌的生产过程中所创造价值的公平份额。

Additionally, BCT can help consumers to observe whether farmers receive a fair share of the value created by the physical chain of activities that provide their foods from farm to fork.

来年大理松乐农场将继续努力，为全国各地的消费者提供广泛及多样化的营养美味产品的选择。

In the coming year Dali SOL Farms will continue to strive and bring an expanded and diversified choice of nutritious and delicious products for consumers all over China.