Blockchain Technology In Food Supply Chains: Applications, Limitations, And Future Directions

Blockchain technology offers significant potential to address persistent challenges in food supply chains,
including weak traceability, food safety concerns, limited transparency, and inefficiencies. This paper critically reviews blockchain applications, limitations, and future directions in agri-food supply chains. The technology enables secure, decentralized, and tamper-proof recording of food production and distribution data, enhancing traceability through integration with IoT and RFID technologies, improving supply chain coordination, reducing fraud, strengthening consumer trust, and enabling automated transactions via smart contracts. Market projections indicate substantial growth, with the global blockchain agriculture market expected to reach approximately $1.4 billion by 2028. However, widespread adoption faces significant barriers, including high implementation costs, scalability constraints, privacy concerns, interoperability issues, regulatory uncertainties, and technical expertise
shortages, particularly affecting small and medium-scale enterprises. Future research directions include
developing standardized interoperability frameworks, enhancing privacy protection mechanisms, optimizing energy-efficient consensus protocols, establishing regulatory guidelines, and improving system throughput. Successful implementation requires supportive policies, stakeholder collaboration, capacity building, and continued technological advancements. This review contributes to the growing knowledge base on blockchain applications in agriculture and provides practical insights for researchers, policymakers, and industry stakeholders seeking to leverage blockchain for improved food supply chain management.

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