coffee filter coffee Coffee Board of India Bengaluru IT City It’s a very complex system of keeping records, a copy of which is with every stakeholder, and not with any central authority. So there is no way you can fudge data. Blockchain establishes trust in the system – Advaith Mohan, a member of Blockchained India Do you know where your favouritecomes from? Whether you’re a coffee pod user or the proud home barista who roasts and grinds the coffee beans or theworshipper, the answer to that question is everything. Where your favourite coffee c omes from, at what altitude it’s grown, is it shade grown or not, how is it harvested, processed and packaged - all of this goes into making that cup perfect of coffee. Or not.And so the(CBI), which is headquartered in, has decided to enable this ‘traceability’, in a manner that theknows best - with technology. On Thursday, CBI will launch a blockchain-based marketplace app for growers, processors, buyers, exporters, importers and other stakeholders of Indian coffee. And this makes it only the third blockchain coffee in the world. In Ethiopia, for instance, blockchain pioneers bext360 and the FairChain Foundation are piloting a project to grow honest coffee, details of which you can view online. Then, Seattle-based Onda Origins is selling blockchain coffee already. London-based Provenance tells the origin stories of everything from handmade shoes to artisanal soup and ripped denims using blockchain and open data.But, how does blockchain technology that drives Bitcoins, and that is taking the banking sector by storm, revolutionise the coffee supply-chain? Advaith Mohan, a member of Blockchained India, breaks it down. “Imagine a town, which has only one account keeper. Now I give Rs 5 to my neighbour and ask the account keeper to update both of our accounts. But turns out that neighbour is his cousin and he requests him not to update the accounts. This is cheating, right? Now think of a situation where every resident of that town maintains an account book for the entire town, and instead of going to the account keeper, I go to the town square and shout out and tell everyone that I gave Rs 5 to my neighbour. Next, they all update this transaction in their books. So practically all the transactions in this town happen in a transparent manner, which is why people can trust each other. This is Blockchain. It’s a very complex system of keeping records, a copy of which is with every stakeholder, and not with any central authority. So there is no way you can fudge data. Blockchain establishes trust in the system.”The Coffee Board wants to leverage these aspects of transparency, visibility, and traceability to put coffee producers in India in a stronger position, by providing them with verifiable details of how much their coffee is worth and dynamics of the supply chain. This is because even though Indian coffees are highly valued in the world market and sold as premium coffees, the share of farmers in the final returns from the yield is very meagre, CBI noted in a press release. And 71 per cent of this total Indian yield comes from Karnataka, followed by Kerala and Tamil Nadu.But can blockchain give the coffee producers their real due, and you an honest cup of coffee? We asked the stakeholders.The Indian coffee market is in a bad state and needs help, said an official from Karnataka Planters’ Association on the condition of anonymity. “We produced 60,000 tonnes less coffee this year due to the floods, but growers are not getting any help either from the state or central government. They have not released any subsidy. Not just coffee, tea, rubber, pepper… every crop is doing poorly. So while I am not aware of this blockchain initiative, if it can help, it’s good,” he said. Meanwhile, he added, that some growers are selling, packing and exporting coffee themselves to ensure fair trading. While some have joined the global Fairtrade movement to earn fair prices, others sell their brands with geo-tags to allow traceability.Suresh Narasimha, who buys coffee from the estates of Chikmagalur and Kodagu and supplies it to customers and hotels, says, “At its heart, blockchain is a great concept. But whether technology can solve an issue which is offline and so rooted to the ground, it’s too early to comment.” However, he has no doubt that the coffee industry needs traceability, from growers all the way to the drinkers. “One, coffee is a commodity. So if a brand is known for selling a certain blend or variety, it has to ensure that consistency. And you can ensure this only if you have an inventory with accurate and updated information about soil conditions, weather, altitude, picking timings, pest control, roasting, etc. Two, the cost and marketability of a coffee brand depends not just on how it tastes but also how it is produced - whether the farming practices are sustainable or ethical, such as, does a farm employ only women.”Akhilesh Basappa is a fifth-generation owner of a coffee estate in Kodagu. He feels the market forces are indifferent to the plight of coffee growers, who had to battle drought between 2015 and 2017, and then floods last year, leading to losses. So a system that can lay bare the ground reality will help. “The coffee market is down at the moment. On one hand, we face a shortage of labourers and the cost of labour is high, on the other, the market price of coffee is low. So we spend more than we earn. We spend Rs 8,500 to produce 50 kilos of single-origin Arabica but sell it for Rs 7,500. There is no help coming in from the coffee bodies. If we don’t pay fair prices to coffee growers, what will you drink and what will you export?”If blockchain technology can solve all these problems, it could come close to being as great as a cup of coffee.

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