"‘The lunacy of Blockchain’ drove commodities veterans to launch new technology association"
From AgFunder:
A new international non-profit
association has launched to improve the trading process for the
commodities industry through the adoption and standardization of
technology.
The Global Commodity Technology Association
(GCTA) is now open to participants in the global commodities supply
chain involved in ocean-bound agricultural trade. This includes growers,
processors, logistics providers, and trading houses, who will form a
working group to support the industry’s ongoing efforts to achieve
greater efficiency through digitization. Association membership, which
will incur a typical fee, will be limited initially to selected entities
in order to create a small but functional cross-representation of the
industry’s interests. Fees will go towards selecting technology vendors, providing software, and other costs associated with its mission.
For GCTA founder Julie Lerner, the idea for a new tech-driven association was born out of frustration.
“For me, the impetus was the lunacy
of blockchain. You see digital asset holdings and so many others talking
about how they will save the world with blockchain, save billions, end
poverty, fix food security. But when you read it as a commodity trader,
you think what do you mean when you say ‘put it on the blockchain?’”
Lerner tells AFN.
“All of us who trade know that when you load a vessel at port, you are
loading documents, usually shoving them into an envelope and sending
them to the end buyer.”
The Grim Reaper of Blockchain
Lerner describes herself as bullish on the theoretical concept of
blockchain, but believes that we are more than a decade away from
effective implementation in physical commodities due to the severity of
the industry’s antiquated practices.
“We don’t even have one document that is standardized and ready for
digitization,” she says. “Today, we can do blockchain but only for PDFs
and I question the benefit of that if the destination buyers still
demand hard copy documents like a certificate of origins.”
Blockchain has been touted as a critical piece of ag’s digital future, with Alibaba and Bayer recently announcing that they are teaming up to create a blockchain-based ag tracking system, while GrainChain is using blockchain to link up Honduras’ disjointed coffee industry. In the livestock industry, Wyoming
is hoping blockchain can help ranchers using sustainable management
practices on their ranches can get a premium for their beef.
Unsurprisingly, many people began referring to Lerner as the ‘Grim Reaper of Blockchain,’....
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