Greenacre is leading the development of blockchain-based application to support African farmers
Jonathan Greenacre, assistant professor of international relations at Boston University’s Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies, serves as Principal investigator and project manager a new partnership between Boston University Global Development Policy Center (GDP Center) and the Rafik B. Hariri Institute for Computing and Computational Science and EngineeringHello Tractor, as well as the Algorand Foundation to use blockchain technology to develop an application to unlock access and support farmers in Africa.
Funded by the Algorand Foundation, Greenacre and his team will use blockchain and contract theory to help Hello Tractor – a Kenya-based firm that explicitly seeks to build a digital ecosystem in the agricultural sector – “leap” institutional and infrastructure problems in Africa and beyond developmental features. countries to drive the formation of pro-poor, inclusive digital ecosystems. Hello Tractor’s digital ecosystem, often called the “Uber-meets-Salesforce for tractors”, connects small farmers seeking machinery with fleet managers looking to improve the delivery of tractor services.
“Hello Tractor’s digital ecosystem contains many bottlenecks that hinder the firm’s ability to achieve its inclusive growth goals in rural and frontier areas of Africa and other developing regions,” Greenacre says in a BNP Center blog outlining the project. “The new blockchain-based solution, called ‘Tokenomics’, will develop and protect information about all orders and tractor activities of tractor owners, streamlining the entire digital ecosystem. Access to tokens will enhance Hello Tractor’s current mobile and web app platform by creating incentives for farmers, tractor owners, booking agents and investors to address the bottlenecks to access.”
The project aims to better support Hello Tractor’s mission to support farmers in Africa and, by extension, help feed the world into the 21st century. In addition, insights from the project can support the work of other firms trying to provide healthcare, clean energy and other services to rural communities. Reaching and effectively supporting these communities is a big job, and technological innovations like blockchain will be important to make it happen.
For more information, read Greenacre’s GDP Center blog detailing the project as well as the Algorand Foundation’s press release.
Professor Greenacre is a research fellow and a lawyer. He has provided legal and regulatory advice to the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and central banks in Africa and the Pacific. His work focuses on developing new regulatory frameworks for the digital revolution, particularly fintech payment systems/cryptocurrencies, artificial intelligence, transport and the Internet of Things. Learn more about Professor Greenacre on his faculty profile.
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