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Grain marketers plan switch to blockchain

Four major grain marketers say they’ll use blockchain and artificial intelligence technologies to increase transparency and efficiency in grain transactions. Archer Daniels Midland, Bunge, Cargill, and Louis Dreyfus say they’ll make the move to save time and resources associated with commodity trades and global shipping. They’ll also try to coax broad-based industry participation.

The companies say what they’re trying to automate is what’s currently the most manual and costly part of the commodity supply chain. The industry spends a lot moving documents around the globe. Dreyfus CEO Ian McIntosh says the company did its first blockchain commodity transaction in January. He says that cut the time usually spent on manual document and data processing.