Blockchain-Enabled Provenance and Supply Chain Governance for Indigenous Foods and Botanicals: A Design Approach Study

Abstract

Ensuring Indigenous producers realize and capture provenance value from the native foods and botanicals supply chain is a key part of achieving economic, community, and ecological sustainability for Indigenous communities. Utilizing blockchain technology to support validated provenance claims throughout supply chain processes is an important intervention toward achieving this objective. This paper presents the preliminary results of an ongoing project in which blockchain technology underpins a “whole of supply chain” approach to addressing issues of provenance value claims and how these are validated within a digitalized environment. The paper focuses on the overarching objectives of achieving provenance value-based growth, and sustainability within a collaborative governance framework that reflects Indigenous community practice. We discuss how technology design and application developments have been undertaken in the context of a cooperative governance model, with the long-term view of enabling ecosystem participants to share responsibility for system development, operations, and benefits. The paper presents a provenance claims approach anchored in a Resources, Events, and Agents (REA) framework. It showcases the first version of a digital application that was developed by engaging a user community. How the application may be applied to other sectors is also briefly explored.