Food Traceability in Africa Unlocked: Opportunities and Risks for Blockchain

April 1. 2025

Summary

- Blockchain technology can transform Africa’s fragmented food supply chains by improving transparency, reducing fraud, and meeting international market standards. However, adoption is hindered by high costs, poor digital infrastructure, and limited awareness among farmers.
- Country-Specific Blockchain Initiatives & Challenges: Countries like Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Egypt, and Ethiopia are piloting blockchain-based traceability solutions, but regulatory uncertainties, interoperability issues, and resistance from intermediaries slow down adoption. Notable projects include One Million Avocados (OMA) in Kenya and IBM Food Trust in Egypt.
- The global blockchain in the agriculture market is projected to reach $1.5 billion by 2026. While Africa lags behind regions like Europe and North America, increasing investments in supply chain digitization, mobile technologies, and digital financial services signal a promising future for blockchain adoption in food traceability.

Introduction

A recent UNDP report highlighted that agri-food traceability can be achieved on the blockchain, which is crucial for complex, multi-actor supply chains. Several researchers have tried to examine the issue in depth, but similar endeavors are scarce in Africa, where fragmented supply chains, limited digital infrastructure, and regulatory uncertainties hinder widespread adoption.

A Quick Recap

The agricultural sector is the backbone of many African countries, with the latest estimates from the World Bank showing that nearly half (49%) of the people in Sub-Saharan Africa are employed in the sector. In countries like Burundi, Niger, and the Central African Republic, over 70% of the population ekes out a living from agriculture, with a 2023 White & Case study indicating the industry contributed about 35% to the continent’s GDP.

Food supply chains are multifaceted and involve a large number of contributors, from farmers to distributors and retailers. This structure deals with informal markets with limited record keeping, restricting traceability, which is vital to addressing sustainability issues in food systems.

Outside of export-oriented supply chains, there are two verticals in Africa’s food traceability system. These are:

Domestic market traceability: Focuses on improving food safety, quality control, and regulatory compliance within local markets.
Supply chain digitization: Leverages technology to enhance record-keeping, reduce food fraud, and improve transparency across informal and formal food networks.

In traditional food traceability systems, record-keeping is often paper-based, fragmented, and prone to errors or fraud, making it difficult to track food origins and safety standards. Conversely, digital supply chains using blockchain technology allow real-time, tamper-proof tracking of food products from farm to fork. They also streamline data sharing among stakeholders. Supply chain digitization helps create safer, more resilient food systems by significantly reducing food fraud, contamination risks, and supply chain disputes.

Opportunities & Risks

Let’s start by highlighting the main opportunities in blockchain-based food traceability. These include:

Trust and transparency: Blockchain offers a means of creating tamper-proof records of all transactions from the farm to the consumer. With the history of each food product easily traceable, sources of contamination or counterfeits can be pinpointed more easily.
International Markets: Blockchain is also the key to global market doors. International buyers often demand exacting traceability standards for food produce, and the immutable ledger provides that, allowing African farmers, whether in fishing, coffee or cocoa trade, to compete on a global level.
Few Intermediaries: Traditional systems of supply chain networks include intermediaries who cause delays and take a significant portion of the profits, impacting farmers’ income. Thanks to smart contracts, this barrier is eliminated, ensuring that farmers are paid on time and enjoy maximum profits.

Blockchain-based food traceability offers significant benefits, but it also comes with risks. Here’s why caution is necessary:

Cost: Setting up the infrastructure needed to support blockchain is expensive and may often be beyond the financial reach of small-scale farmers. This reduces the adoption rate of such technologies.
Poor Infrastructure: Africa also has relatively poor digital infrastructure, with most rural areas still lacking stable internet connection. With most food production coming from these remote places, blockchain continues to be an unattainable goal if producers can’t access basic connectivity.
Regulatory Clarity: African governments are still navigating how to regulate blockchain in agriculture. Without properly declared legal frameworks, investor interest may wane, slowing down the adoption pace.
Limited Awareness: Blockchain can be a game-changer, but are farmers aware of that? They cannot invest in something they don’t fully grasp yet; lack of proper information and low awareness in farmers and agribusinesses will make it harder to convince stakeholders to change over to blockchain-based systems.

Market Size & Growth Opportunity

How do we estimate the scale of the opportunity with blockchain-based food traceability in Africa?

We begin by looking at the number of smallholder farmers and agribusinesses adopting digital solutions across various agricultural value chains. The number of blockchain-powered traceability initiatives and pilot projects continues to grow steadily, having picked up significantly in response to increasing food safety concerns, export market demands, and regulatory pressures.

However, the absolute number of adopters is still tiny. This is even more stark when you compare Africa’s adoption rate to that of regions like Europe and North America. However:

Digital adoption in Africa’s food supply chains depends on private, public, and hybrid interventions, which are expected to be about USD 11,000 by 2033 globally as shown in Graph 1.
50 million+ farmers have gained credit access via digital technologies since 2015.
217 digital solutions deployed in East Africa alone, with Kenya leading in adoption due to mobile money infrastructure.
Basic-to-advanced digital tools (e.g., SMS, apps, USSD) are increasingly used for advisory services, agri-finance, and marketing.

Graph 1

Looking at blockchain adoption in Africa’s food supply chains, the data was heavily skewed due to a lack of comprehensive statistics on blockchain’s real-world impact in agriculture.

Excluding general digital agriculture solutions and focusing solely on blockchain-specific interventions, the adoption rate remains significantly lower. This represents a major gap in research and investment, despite the potential benefits of blockchain for food traceability.

For instance:

The global blockchain in agriculture and food supply chain market is projected to reach US$1.5 billion by 2026, growing at a CAGR of 48.1%.
Only a handful of blockchain food traceability projects are active in Africa, with Ghana, Kenya, and South Africa leading the way.
One Million Avocados’s (OMA) blockchain-based avocado tokenization initiative in Kenya is one of the few large-scale efforts tackling traceability at the farmer level.

Country-By-Country Comparison

Blockchain’s potential for food traceability varies widely across Africa, shaped by government policies, market demands, and infrastructure readiness.

Below, we analyze its adoption in several countries, highlighting key initiatives, persistent challenges, and how each of them is navigating the shift toward transparent supply chains.

Kenya

In the 2021 agricultural policy statements, county governments were encouraged to promote product branding and traceability to ensure consumer confidence and gain access to regional and international markets. The Nairobi County government has started enforcing stricter governance and oversight on the contamination of fresh produce entering its markets, with pesticide residues in fruits and vegetables being linked to reduced fertility levels in women. Consequently, investment in product governance, including internal traceability of production and handling practices, is recommended in line with the Code of Conduct for fresh fruits and vegetables.

Traceability systems in Kenya’s horticulture subsector are touted to enhance consumer confidence and make the sector more competitive. However, the affordability of these systems, including blockchain-based solutions, is a limiting factor, with paper-based traceability being the cheapest option. Overall, these food quality and standards systems support the National Food Safety Policy by promoting product traceability, outlining food safety infrastructure, and addressing risks across the entire food supply chain, from production to distribution.

Nigeria

Between 2016 and 2017, a Salmonella enterica epidemic affected 47 individuals in the Czech Republic, Germany, Greece, and Luxembourg due to sesame paste produced from Nigerian and Sudanese sesame seeds.

Also, Agriculture Minister Abubakar Kyari accused the country’s richest traders of hoarding grains to boost demand and, consequently, drive prices up earlier this year.

In response, Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD) initiatives have focused on improving infrastructure, prioritizing export commodities, ensuring crop traceability, and building high-quality brands for Nigerian foods. This has led to positive outcomes, including an increase in the value of yam exports to European markets. Besides, the priority action for Food Systems Transformation in Nigeria is to invest in automating food value chains to enhance product traceability.

Thus, blockchain technology is crucial for food safety and traceability in Nigeria’s supply chains.

For example, UfarmX , which uses blockchain technology, has started pilots in Nigeria to determine gaps in agricultural data management. It has implemented the Polkadot blockchain to store data and use it to generate QR codes to enhance access to farmers’ information.

Again, Nigerian Farmers Group and Cooperative Society (NFGCS) has launched Agbatoken by Agbadovolution Technologies, a blockchain aimed at enhancing food security by ensuring transparency in rural-linked agricultural supply chains. However, Nigeria faces challenges in implementing blockchain technology due to scalability, interoperability, regulatory compliance, and data privacy concerns.

South Africa

Advanced technologies are progressively being employed in response to South African 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, Woolworths South Africa has partnered with Nedap’s iD Cloud to improve stock accuracy and product availability in 217 South African stores. The RFID solution aims to reduce missed sales.

In 2021, The European Commission approved the registration of the designation South Africa’s Rooibos tea in its Register of Protected Geographical Indications to promote traceability.

South Africa’s Integrity and Sustainability Certification (ISCC) program also mandates sustainability practices and third-party audits for wine producers to ensure compliance with environmental and social standards in the global wine industry.

Lastly, the South African beef industry is implementing traceability systems, under the Meat Safety Act of 2000, to meet export market requirements and ensure animal identification and traceability.

From a blockchain perspective, Dimitra Inc. utilizes blockchain for safe data exchange, while Data Ledger focuses on initiatives such as Beef Ledger, Wine Ledger, and Halal Ledger in South Africa. Again, the ‘Blockchain for Agrifood’ pilot project, launched in March 2017, aimed to provide a better understanding of the applications of blockchain technology in agri-food chains. The project intended to create and implement a proof of concept — tracing certificates in the supply chain of table grapes.

Blockchain offers a premise for South Africa to align with global trends driving traceability, including changing consumer preferences, increasing import market regulations, globalisation, competition in agribusiness, and evolving technology. However, adoption issues persist in South Africa owing to opposition from middle and upper value chain players.

Egypt

The rapid qualitative assessment plan for Egypt’s agri-food post-COVID aimed to improve its input quality, production safety, market infrastructure, and digital processes while promoting local supply and adherence to safety standards. The Egyptian Traceability Centre for Agro-Industrial exports (ETRACE) was established to make Egyptian agro-industrial export safer, more competitive, and compliant with international quality and safety standards.

Besides, IBM Food Trust is partnering with Majid Al Futtaim, which owns the Mall of Egypt to enhance food traceability across Carrefour stores using blockchain technology. This strategic collaboration ensures end-to-end product visibility, promoting food quality, credibility, and safety, and efficient documentation.

Ethiopia

In Ethiopia, exporters often use paper-based traceability systems in rural areas, with limited GPS implementation for exporters and transportation companies. Thus, INA in Ethiopia is implementing a pilot project called ISASE, which aims to improve traceability of raw materials (honey, beeswax, and spices) with digital solutions. This is because cooperatives like “Dire Gudinaa” in Nono Sale are using analogue systems, causing low prices for farmers and increasing forest pressure.

Also, the Sustainable Agricultural Supply Chains and Standards (NAS) Programme is launching a project in Nono Sale, Ethiopia, to integrate a digital traceability system for carbon footprint data and agricultural credit access.

At a corporate level, Trabocca, a Dutch coffee importer, uses a traceability solution to verify if Ethiopian coffee growers are receiving premium payments for quality.

In addition, Ethiopia Commodity Exchange (ECX) has introduced eATTS, an IBM-enabled nationwide traceability system, to help over 5 million smallholder farmers who produce diverse commodities traded on the ECX. The $4.5 million pilot initiative is aimed to boost Ethiopian coffee exports worldwide while also improving specialty coffee market access. The system employs IBM and Frequenz IRIS technology to connect ECX-traded crop bags to over 2,500 geo-referenced stations.

Besides, the Ethiopia Traceability Project is an 18- month program that attempts to enhance first-mile traceability in Ethiopia’s fragmented coffee supply chains while also training farmers on Good Agricultural Practices.

Lastly, the GIZ Program Strengthening Drought Resilience in Arid and Semi-Arid Lowlands of Ethiopia (SDR-ASAL) also supports the Ethiopian Government in implementing the Country Programming Paper. The system helps in supply chain analysis, traceability reporting, source-tobuyer coding, traceability management, and traceability documents development.

The proposed Digital Supply Chain framework for coffee in countries like Ethiopia classifies information into four levels: paper-based collection, central database storage, digital traceability integration, and the use of barcodes/QR codes and IoT with blockchain. However, the adoption of traceability systems (TSs) in low-income nations such as Ethiopia is difficult owing to complicated supply chains, numerous stakeholders, and financial disparity. Besides, smallholder farmers have unique challenges when using digital technology, notably blockchain.

Yet, one company in Ethiopia has defied the odds by introducing blockchain to the country’s supply chain. Moyee, a coffee roastery in Addis Ababa employs blockchain technology to secure supply chain transparency. Moyee intends to utilize blockchain to enable buyers to tip farmers and support projects via a mobile app.

Parting Shot

Africa’s supply distribution networks are faced with numerous challenges but one thing is clear: the future of food traceability in the continent can be so much better with blockchain.

Practical implementation of traceability has proved that the digital ledger is more than just hype, it can combat fraud and increase efficiency in the distribution chain. But in order to increase awareness, a collaboration between tech bodies, governments and stakeholders is demanded, in order to fashion policies, educational programs and the right infrastructure for traceability to thrive.

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