Blockchain technology for food security? Resilience potential and risk identification for the Multilateral System of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture

As blockchain technology is becoming mainstream, various sectors and national, European and international organizations are looking into the capabilities of blockchain. One of the possible applications of this technology is to record and track transactions within a network. Typically, all or multiple parties within the peer-to-peer blockchain network are allowed to validate and verify the transactions that will be entered onto the ledger, while no single party is able to modify or impair any ledger entries. This results in the creation of a trustworthy and transparent record of transactions. Therefore, the key innovation is to ensure the integrity of the ledger by crowdsourcing oversight, while removing the need for a central authority. However, innovative technologies such as blockchain can create new risks and negative societal or environmental impacts that need to be properly addressed and regulated. In the food and agriculture sector, organizations are looking into blockchain systems mainly to facilitate traceability, commodity management, sharing data, marketplace creation, payment, and access to capital in the food supply chain. But the food and agriculture sector is not limited to the food supply chain, which comes at the end of the food production chain. Many other applications at different stages of this chain can be envisaged. At the very early stage of seed variety conservation and breeding, blockchain could be used to facilitate the exchange of genetic resources (including their related information as well as the seed itself). Furthermore, blockchain could help fostering trust and transparency between stakeholders in the Multilateral System of access and benefit-sharing (MLS) of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic resources for Food and Agriculture (the ITPGRFA). We acknowledge that many hurdles and risks exist in respect of large scale applications of blockchain technology (e.g. data security and privacy issues, environmental cost of heavy data management infrastructure as well as determining the applicable law). However, we explore whether and how blockchain technology (and its underlying principles) can serve as a tool to facilitate the implementation of complex licensing mechanisms, such as the MLS of the ITPGRFA. Such mechanisms have encountered various challenges in their application, including problems related to trustworthiness. In this article, we particularly investigate the potential to increase the trustworthiness and the resilience of the MLS by employing blockchain technology.