Blockchain, IoT and AI in Africa’s Food Supply Chains: The Connected Economy

March 19, 2025

The fabric of Supply Chain Collaboration Technologies (SCCTs) is shifting. In under three years, we may very well see a paradigm shift in transparency, trust, and automation in many domains. Blockchain, artificial intelligence (AI), and the Internet of Things (IoT) are rapidly proving capable of redefining data sharing, enhancing traceability, and optimizing decision-making. The forecasted value of blockchain in the agriculture and food market worldwide is predicted to be 1.5 million USD by 2026, as shown in Graph 1.

Graph 1

The marginal cost of real-time data acquisition and verification will have broad ramifications for how supply chain demands are met. Agtech technologies have already eaten considerably into manual inefficiencies and siloed data systems, but blockchain, AI, and IoT — while transformative — will pale in comparison to the next frontier: a command bar for supply chain orchestration across continents.

The conventional hierarchical flow of logistics and communication will be replaced by intuitive, decentralized interfaces that enable instant, cross-border decision-making.

Flowchart Of Blockchain, AI, and IoT Integration To Enhance Food Traceability

AI

IoT

These three are the hottest new technologies: blockchain, AI, and IoT. Self-learning systems and autonomous networks, which will increasingly summon themselves. We are shifting from ERP-based agriculture to smart, self-regulating supply chains, and as the shift is largely in the realm of decentralization and automation, it will be faster than most imagine.

In short, do blockchains provide a superior infrastructure on which to rebuild trust, transparency, and traceability at scale—or is it just a cute techno-utopian sandbox?

At its core, this is a question about who benefits. While we’re optimistic that blockchain, AI, and IoT can help fix the deep-rooted flaws in Africa’s food traceability systems—thanks to their open, interoperable, and border-agnostic nature—we’re also realistic. This will not be some utopian “everyone wins” tale. The rise of AI and IoT will likely usher in both abundance and greater inequality. The real issue lies in who gets to distribute the value—and who gets left behind.

Two possible futures lie ahead:

1) Business as usual:
Large corporations remain the primary power brokers within existing institutional structures. New agricultural technologies are forced to fit into old, rigid systems. This reinforces patterns we’ve seen over the last decade: data ownership remains centralized, small-scale farmers are sidelined from premium markets, and supply chains stay murky and resistant to scrutiny—all of which stifles local innovation, fair value sharing, and transformative change.

2) Change: Imagine a world where blockchain, AI, and IoT operate freely on open, interoperable infrastructure—unbound by legacy systems. Recognizing this shift, much like the agrarian revolution of the past, will catalyze a sweeping transformation in how food systems are governed, optimized, and trusted—a profound shift in power dynamics, economic participation, and global food equity.

In our view, blockchain, AI, and IoT offer the most powerful toolkit to reimagine Africa’s agricultural future amidst this century’s pivotal technological turning point. An open, composable layer for data, identity, and payments—accessible to all, not just the privileged few—lays the groundwork for a new kind of infrastructure that empowers builders, farmers, and innovators alike. From boosting productivity and unlocking global market access to tackling inefficiencies, fraud, and entrenched inequality, this stack could reshape the continent’s food systems from the ground up.

Enablers

AI’s Predictive Capabilities

AI’s ability to leverage machine learning (ML) for enhanced predictions and automation of farming, manufacturing, logistics, and compliance plays a crucial role in food traceability by providing scalable infrastructure for data storage, processing, and management.

Today’s food traceability system resembles a patchwork of incompatible platforms and fragmented datasets, stitched together by local pipelines riddled with intermediaries and burdened by high transaction costs. It’s a supply chain propped up by manual oversight, limited visibility, and siloed trust structures.

Theoretically, AI applications and servers handle real-time data from various stakeholders, including producers, suppliers, and retailers. Data warehousing and big data processing enable the aggregation and analysis of vast amounts of traceability data, including product origin, quality, and movement. This centralized approach ensures that all relevant data is readily accessible for auditing and compliance purposes, leveraging cloud-based platforms to facilitate seamless information exchange across the supply chain. Distributed Applications (DApps) built on blockchain technology enhance food traceability by ensuring data integrity and transparency.

Again: IOT’s Data Monitoring

Devices such as IoT sensors, RFID tags, and barcode scanners are integral to capturing real-time data throughout the food supply chain. These devices monitor and record crucial metrics, including temperature, humidity, and location, ensuring the integrity and safety of food products. Data collected by these devices is securely transmitted to centralized systems or directly to blockchain networks for verification and record-keeping. For example, IBM’s Crypto Anchor Verifier recognizes optical features of substances, goods, or objects. This ensures that every transaction or change in the supply chain is recorded as a verifiable block, making the data tamper-proof and accessible to authorized stakeholders.

The most straightforward identity creation mechanism involves creating a unique barcode at food processing facilities without biochemical analysis. This prevents adulteration and provides information on the product’s origin, contaminants, and additives. Similar identity creation approaches for agri-food include DNA barcoding, allergen analysis, and biosensing.

A few projects are already working on this:

Dimitra has partnered with the One Million Avocados (OMA) initiative to help small-scale Kenyan farmers improve the production and quality of their avocado crop using blockchain and other emerging technologies, including AI, IoT, and satellite imaging. The project is also helping the farmers address traceability challenges, maximize the value of produce, and comply with international regulatory standards.

Speaking to Cointelegraph about the project, Monica Singer, Consensys’ South African lead, stressed the importance of combining AI and blockchain. “When you are able to create an ecosystem using mobile and Internet of Things devices and AI, where relevant, it will be a more powerful solution than the blockchain ledger on its own,” she said.

Four years ago, Majid Al Futtaim, the operator of Carrefour stores across the Middle East, Asia, and Africa, partnered with IBM Food Trust to enhance food traceability. The initiative provided customers with detailed information regarding the provenance of products sold in the stores, including their production processes, quality certifications, and temperature data. All these could be accessed by simply scanning a QR code on the product packaging.

Hani Weiss, CEO of Majid Al Futtaim Retail, stated, “Trust in the food supply is becoming increasingly important worldwide, a trend accelerated by changing consumer demands.”

Challenges

Payments have arguably been blockchain’s Achilles’ heel to date: the regulatory barriers and lack of seamless on/off-ramps have held back adoption and the development of stable, reliable payment layers to underpin broader agricultural activity and “real world” use cases beyond speculation. There are existing challenges that affect the adoption of SCCTs in Africa, as shown in Graph 2. However, blockchain, AI, and IoT implementation issues generally fall into three buckets:

Infrastructure Deficits: Many regions lack reliable internet connectivity and power supply to support IoT devices or blockchain platforms.
Cost Constraints: High implementation costs limit access for small-scale farmers.
Regulatory Issues: Inconsistent policies across countries hinder widespread adoption of these technologies.

Graph 2

Since the turn of the millennium, many African governments have made deliberate efforts to strengthen agricultural systems through policy reforms, digital registries, and quality control frameworks. These traceability structures have brought notable gains in food safety, market transparency, and supply chain efficiency. The reforms also paved the way for export market compliance and created economies of scale—key pillars that fueled growth during the continent’s modern agrarian transformation.

Looking ahead, blockchain’s role in agricultural value chains promises to be even more transformative: enabling tamper-proof data, automating trust through smart contracts, and giving smallholder farmers greater access to fair markets and financing.

BaaS platforms offer a cloud-based solution for developing, hosting, and using blockchain applications. These platforms provide the necessary blockchain framework and infrastructure, allowing businesses to focus on the application aspect of the technology. From chain-of-thought reasoning to decentralized autonomous systems, BaaS reduces entry barriers for implementing blockchain technology, especially for smallholder farmers and SMEs who may lack technical expertise and financial resources. As 5G networks roll out across the continent, BaaS will significantly boost the performance of IoT devices—allowing for instant data transmission and more reliable communication, especially in hard-to-reach rural areas. Supply chain players will soon consider using BaaS platforms to ensure high levels of security and customizable permission settings to accommodate different stakeholder needs. Incorporating BaaS into the blockchain adoption strategy for African food supply chains can enhance the robustness of food traceability systems and support broader integration of blockchain technology across diverse agricultural settings.

Whether these technologies alone are enough to steer Africa’s agricultural supply chains toward full transparency remains uncertain. Powerful interests—those who benefit from opacity and fragmentation—are deeply invested in maintaining the status quo. Still, the market is showing early signs of shift, with growing demand for traceable produce, pressure from global buyers, and a new generation of agritech entrepreneurs eager to build more equitable systems from the ground up.

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