What is Blockchain and where can it be utilized?
Blockchain is a peer-to-peer decentralized network and distributed ledger system technology that allows a vast array of secured data to be created and shared globally. Furthermore, it allows a globalized storage system through its infrastructure that can be utilized for various operations. Among other functions, blockchain records transactions and changes in data, as well as allows enterprise developments virtually anywhere in the world at minimum cost. Blockchain’s skilled resources are remote and therefore do not require a ground unit to be deployed. The technology can be positioned to communicate with existing data, devices, and systems to gather insight and deploy functions. In a nutshell, blockchain technology is capable of conducting operations, storing-exchanging information, transferring real-world value, utilizing decentralized labor force and infrastructure, and being adopted immediately into the current scenario with massive future functional opportunities.
In emerging economies that lack technology infrastructure, specific skill sets, and utilization of current assets, Blockchain can still be operational. For example, a farmer growing rice could need a system that actively monitors droughts and provides him with planning and trading options. He may have difficulty understanding the data and require it in simplified terms of what he can grow, when, where and how he can grow it, and when the best time to harvest and trade it would be. In a traditional system, this would require an enterprise-grade system actively communicating with data provided and other devices or existing data sources. Additionally, key manpower with an understanding of modeling systems in the agricultural industry would need to be utilized, and communication with the farmer or ground unit would need to be conducted to create a system. Existing infrastructure would need to include devices and systems in place to actively monitor certain changes, as well as to communicate with other similar systems to extract certain knowledge or data. Such infrastructure would mean high cost, complexity, and time, all of which emerging economies cannot usually afford.
Blockchain simplifies the entire process by deploying a system that does not require large scale infrastructures such as data centers, data readers, or massive power input to power operations. Instead, existing data collection devices, such as featured phones or even IoT devices, could be leveraged as source inputs. Furthermore, an enterprise-grade system that can curate data and create a model, can be built either on the ground location or in a completely remote location. This is possible because most data available in the decentralized network is easily accessible within the system and does not come at a premium price like traditional systems. At the very least, the decentralized network provides the “utopian dream” of combining the size and quality of data resources similar to Google, IBM, and Microsoft in single global storage space. Most importantly, a decentralized skilled workforce can be pooled, based on its expertise and understanding of multiple geographic locations, to tackle the agricultural industry in emerging economies rather than wait for emerging economies to build a workforce of their own. But this is not the only advantage that blockchain technology provides the industry. Blockchain technology has certain inherent functions that could prove indispensable to the agricultural industries of emerging economies: