Can digital value chain tracing drive the sustainability transition? A closer look at Peruvian cocoa

Key messages: - Growing consumer demand for agri-food commodities grown under responsible social and environmental conditions creates financial incentives for the private sector transition towards sustainable sourcing. - Verifying farming sustainability is challenging in smallholder context due to complex supply chains. But novel digital technologies allow tracing commodities back to farms of origin, enabling increased transparency on farm-level practices. - Implementing digital traceability systems requires commitments by various value chain players, so financial gains from higher market demand must be shared equitably. - Given limited external supervision, careful choice of sustainability metrics is important to ensure data accuracy and to limit opportunities for fraud. - Setting up tracing systems may require investments in farmers’ digital capacity and co-design of user-friendly interfaces. Where increased consumer demand does not cover costs, public payments for ecosystem services can uphold incentives for farmers’ sustainability transition.

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Steinke, Jonathan, Ivanova, Yovita Petrova, Jones, Sarah, Minh, Thai Thi, Sanchez Bogado, Andrea Cecilia, Sanchez Choy Sanchez, Jose Gerardo, Mockshell, Jonathan Yaw, Min
Format: Brief biblioteca
Language:English
Published: 2023-07
Subjects:sustainability, digital agriculture, blockchain technology, cocoa industry, traceability, value chains, smallholders-smallholder farmers, agroecology,
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10568/131501
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!