Innovative Blockchain-Based Approach for Sustainable and Credible Environment in Food Trade: A Case Study in Shandong Province, China

Agri-food trade has a profound impact on social stability and sustainable economic development. However, there are several technological problems in current agricultural product transactions. For example, it is almost impossible to improve the efficiency of transactions and maintain market stability. This paper designs a novel Food Trading System with COnsortium blockchaiN (FTSCON) to eliminate information asymmetry in the food trade, in order to establish a sustainable and credible trading environment, the system uses consortium blockchain technology to meet the challenge of different authentications and permissions for different roles in food trade. Meanwhile, we have used the online double auction mechanism to eliminate competition. We also have designed a improved Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance (iPBFT) algorithm to improve efficiency. In addition, a case study based on a series of data from Shandong Province, China indicate that the FTSCON can achieve profit improvement of merchants. Therefore, the proposed system proved to have high commercial value.