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The world's four largest agricultural companies, commonly known as ABCD, have joined forces to digitize the grain trade using blockchain and artificial intelligence.
ABCD, formed by Archer Daniels Midland Co., Bunge Ltd., Cargill Inc. and Louis Dreyfus Co., said that implementing distributed records could make trading not only more efficient and transparent, but also cheaper. The conglomerate therefore aims to digitalise a system that has relied on paper contracts, invoices and manual payments to date.
According to the World-Grain.com agriculture information portal, the new technologies will initially be used to automate post-trade execution processes for cereals and oilseeds, which are currently carried out almost entirely manually.
In the future, ABCD plans to integrate the blockchain into various levels of the distribution chain, such as shipping, warehousing and customer experience. Ian McIntosh, CEO of Louis Dreyfus Co., explained that this technology could help the agricultural industry develop through its ability to "increase efficiency and reduce the time usually spent on manual documents and data processing".
Several food companies have recently taken an interest in the blockchain to improve the efficiency of their operations. In January of this year, Louis Dreyfus Co., in collaboration with four other companies, conducted the first fully managed blockchain shipment, sending soybeans from the United States to China.