The Battle for Food Transparency: Blockchain’s Role in Securing Africa’s Supply Chains

March 31. 2025

Summary

Blockchain, AI, and IoT are transforming Africa’s fragmented food supply chains by enhancing transparency, accountability, and efficiency, tackling issues like human rights abuses, food fraud, and unsafe food.
Private-sector initiatives and government-driven programs are both advancing food traceability, with AgTech startups and state-led frameworks driving digital transformation, despite regulatory inertia and infrastructural challenges.
African countries are at varying stages of blockchain adoption in food traceability, with South Africa and Nigeria leading in regulatory progress, Kenya developing early-stage frameworks, and Ethiopia showing potential despite connectivity hurdles.

Introduction

In many ways, food traceability in Africa can be analogized as the “wild west of supply chains:” smallholders frequently sell their produce to multiple dealers at different times, leading to fragmented supply chains.

Encouragingly, the combination of blockchain, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Internet of Things (IoT) is modular in nature – allowing for seamless integration across different stages of the supply chain, from farm to fork. Perhaps the strongest tailwind behind food traceability on the blockchain has been its ability to enhance transparency and accountability: providing real-time reporting of emergent issues throughout the agricultural product value chain, as well as a detailed record of all processes.

Despite the previous challenges with food traceability in Africa, our minds are marching on blockchain’s potential, now aiming to address:

Human Rights Abuses: Smallholder farmers often receive only a small fraction of the final market value of their produce. These farmers primarily operate on less than five acres of land and make up a substantial portion of the world’s impoverished population, many of whom survive on less than $2 per day.
Unsustainable Agriculture: Agri-food supply chains account for 26% of human greenhouse gas emissions while using 50% of Earth’s habitable land and 70% of freshwater.
Food Fraud: Food recalls have surged by more than 400% during the previous five years, costing the industry at least $100 million.
Unsafe Food: Contaminated food causes 600 million illnesses and 420,000 deaths annually.

These issues have now taken center stage, driving urgent innovation in blockchain-powered traceability solutions, spurring regulatory interest, and promoting industry-wide collaboration.

Not only will exploring blockchain’s benefits in food traceability continue but it appears poised to accelerate. IBM Food Trust has proven it works: providing food safety and traceability across the global food chain by keeping a permissioned, immutable record of food origins, transactions, and processes.

The need for blockchain continues to grow. While early adoption faced skepticism and infrastructural hurdles, the result is unambiguously good for food value chain players in Africa.

Blockchain-enabled food supply chains are a thing.

They have matured beyond experimentation – now combined with AI and IoT – for an incredibly low cost-to-benefit ratio. After just a few years, it is on track to surpass traditional traceability systems in efficiency, transparency, and adoption.

Interestingly, these obvious tailwinds are at odds with regulatory inertia and fragmented digital infrastructure: many African countries are still grappling with outdated record-keeping systems and slow policy adoption. For example, Kenya’s Horticultural Traceability Systems, which aim to enhance transparency and visibility of horticulture supply chain activities through electronic registration of export growers, are in their infancy.

While each country has its own shortcomings (detailed later), the rapid advance of blockchain-powered traceability is undeniable. You can expect 2025 to bring a renewed wave of excitement as adoption scales and success stories emerge.

This new paradigm has gained unstoppable momentum, continually evolving to meet the demands of a more transparent and resilient food system.

Matching Making: Unleashing The Digital Trivergance in Africa’s Food Supply Chains

Blockchain is a peer-to-peer network that requires verification before any player is added to the blockchain. This requires a decentralized ledger that relies on consensus and operates on a network of independent nodes, where each participant has equal access to the data, and no single entity controls the entire system.

IoT comprises devices that collect granular, real-time data such as temperature, humidity, GPS location, and other environmental metrics, which are then encrypted and hashed onto the blockchain.

AI, leveraging machine learning (ML) for enhanced predictions, automates tasks across the entire food supply chain, including farming, manufacturing, logistics, and compliance.

By allowing foundational interoperability between blockchain, IoT, and AI, these technologies create a seamless, verifiable, and automated food traceability system.

For example, Woolworths South Africa has been at the frontline to achieve a transparent, traceable, and ethical supply chain by 2025 through initiatives like supplier auditing, detailed product labeling, sustainable sourcing, and technology solutions like blockchain and RFID.

Meanwhile, One Million Avocados (OMA) has taken a unique approach by integrating GIS information on blockchain to tokenize avocado trees. The startup combines drone technology and soil data in aerial monitoring of orchards to ensure farmers make informed decisions for their trees.

Blockchain aims to tap into Africa’s agricultural sector value addition potential. However, the adoption rates and regulatory frameworks vary considerably. Selecting the right mix of technology stacks, governance models, and implementation strategies is critical to building traceability systems which can perform optimally in a given environment.

A mismatch between technological capabilities, infrastructure readiness, and use case will often prove more of a bottleneck than a solution.

State Vs Private Food Traceability Efforts: Competitive or Symbiotic?

One noticeable divide in digital food traceability systems lies in the contrasting approaches of government-driven programs and private-sector initiatives.

To date, this divide has manifested in state-based frameworks primarily targeting focused use cases such as food safety, regulatory compliance, and export certification, while the latter have embraced the market-driven, tech-enabled approach where scalability, efficiency, and supply chain optimization have found greater initial product-market fit in commercial agriculture and export-oriented agribusiness.

For example, Kenya developed a National Horticulture Traceability System (HTS), established by the Horticultural Crops Directorate of AFA (AFA-HCD) with support from USAID Kenya Agricultural Value Chain Enterprises (KAVES) program. This system is designed to enhance hygienic handling, ensure proper packaging, and establish more organized marketplaces.

On the other hand, private players like eProd, which manages smallholder farmers’ produce to export market standards, has issued 64 licenses to traders who consolidate agricultural products from 240,000 farmers across five countries. Next, Farmforce, developed by Syngenta Foundation in 2013, is a cloud-based system that simplifies smallholder farmer management, enhances traceability, 24 and provides access to formal markets, with an android app for data collection.

The private sector’s revenue potential in food traceability is significantly greater. Advanced technologies are progressively being employed in response to customer demand for quality and traceability. This ushers in a new era of low energy devices, mobile apps, artificial intelligence (AI), the internet of things, and smart contracts. As a result, AgTech projects like Agrikore (Botswana, Zambie, Ghana, Uganda, Kenya) and Agricenta (Malawi) have emerged. The private sector’s revenue potential in food traceability is significantly greater, with the global market projected to grow from USD 21.6 billion in 2024 to USD 44.2 billion by 2033 at a 7.85% CAGR as shown in Graph 1. Today, over 32.5% of the market is dominated by Europe, where traceability systems address food safety concerns and ethical sourcing.

Graph 1

This is rapidly changing with the emergence of blockchain.

Blockchain Readiness in Food Traceability Among African Countries

Blockchain will rapidly reduce fraud, inefficiencies, and opacity in Africa, pushing ever larger segments of the agricultural sector into “high-trust, data-driven supply chains.” The food economy will shift from “informal, fragmented markets” towards more transparent, efficient, and globally competitive ecosystems.

South Africa: South Africa has a favorable and progressive crypto regulatory framework that will pave way for broader blockchain adoption. The Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) deems crypto assets as a financial product and required providers to obtain a license based on the Financial Advisory and Intermediary Services Act (FAIS) by the end of 2023, following the 2021 Financial Action Task Force report on crypto assets.
Nigeria: The Blockchain Technology Association of Nigeria (SiBAN) has been instrumental in advocating for blockchain adoption to address Nigeria’s fragmented supply chains and enhance its economic backbone. Their advocacy efforts are likely to gain momentum due to a significant shift in the country’s cryptocurrency regulation, following the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) granting provisional crypto licenses to some digital asset exchanges. A more stable regulatory environment is emerging after a tumultuous period, and this will pave the way for clearer guidelines and a more structured approach to cryptocurrency operations in the country.
Kenya: Kenya’s Horticultural Traceability Systems, which aim to enhance transparency and visibility of horticulture supply chain activities through electronic registration of export growers, are in their infancy. In 2024, Kenya formed a technical group to develop a regulatory framework for virtual assets and services, which culminated in the VASP Bill 2025. The Bill aims to guide the future of crypto and blockchain adoption in the country, which is currently lacking.
Egypt: The Central Bank of Egypt has issued a fourth warning statement on cryptocurrency, warning citizens against engaging in fraudulent activities and legal criminalization. However, it’s not all gloomy, as the National Bank of Egypt became the first bank in Egypt to adopt blockchain by joining the RippleNet Network (XRP-based cross-border payment network). This agreement will enable 67 banks to establish new channels for remittances and expand its remittance business. This offers a hopeful outlook for blockchain’s future potential in various economic sectors.
Ethiopia: Traceability is critical for coffee’s safety, quality, and sustainability. However, Ethiopia confronts problems such as restricted rural internet connectivity and a lack of ICT preparedness. Beyond agriculture, the country has made headlines in the realm of Bitcoin mining. Ethiopia’s Grand Renaissance Dam has drawn Bitcoin miners, raising power capacity from gigawatts to 92%, with deals in place and licensing underway. This development highlights Ethiopia’s openness to blockchain’s transformative potential to boost its economy, laying the groundwork for broader adoption in agricultural traceability.

Food traceability on the blockchain in Africa will ultimately be valued as some sort of “gold standard for supply chain integrity,” ensuring food safety, sustainability, and fair trade across the continent.

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