Fairness, Transparency and Traceability in the Coffee Value Chain through Blockchain Innovation

Coffee is both one of the most widely consumed beverages in the world and one of the most important internationally traded commodities. However, the coffee value chain is opaque and unbalanced: less than 10% of the $200 billion industry value remains in producing countries. First, this article introduces the idea of a Commodity Fairness Index used to measure the inequality, or economic imbalance, in a commodity value chain, and calculates it in the case of Colombian coffee. Secondly, the paper describes the system architecture of a web app built upon Hyperledger Fabric that paves the way to improve coffee farmers’ lives by bringing transparency and traceability into the entire value chain and improving its fairness as a result. The application of blockchain technology to the coffee industry enables inclusive business models that reward quality and hard work, and in turn translates into greater trust, confidence and fairness across the entire industry as well as among end consumers.