Browsing by Author "Kanjere, Julian"

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    A Blockchain-enabled System to enhance Food Traceability in Local Food Supply Chains (FSCs) suitable for Small Co-operatives in South Africa
    (2021) Kanjere, Julian; Georg, Co-Pierre
    Food is vital to human life. Therefore, ensuring its safety as it moves from producer to consumer in food supply chains (FSCs) is essential. This can be achieved through the use of food traceability technology which enables track and trace of produce within a FSC. Recently, blockchain technology (BCT) has shown great potential to enhance traceability in FSCs, owing to its ability to securely store data in a decentralised and tamper-evident manner. However, it appears that research on blockchain-enabled food traceability exists primarily within the context of large FSCs, whilst scarce for local FSCs in which traceability is often an inefficient and manual process. Given this background, this exploratory research is carried out, to investigate whether a blockchain-enabled system can be used to improve traceability in local FSCs. To do this, we (i) collaborate with Oranjezicht City Farm Market (OZCFM) - a farmers market in Cape Town, the smallholder farmers that supply OZCFM with fresh local produce and the OZCFM patrons that purchase the produce; (ii) map out the local FSC by conducting observations and running surveys with the aforementioned actors; (iii) design, develop and pilot FoodPrint - a web based and blockchain-enabled food traceability application. During the pilot within the OZCFM-related local FSC, FoodPrint is used to capture data on the harvest, transportation and storage of produce; and reveal produce provenance at destination by scanning of supplier-produce specific quick response (QR) codes. We find that FoodPrint provides tamper-evident traceability and authentic transparency of produce related data to the local FSC actors. Further, we note that scanning a FoodPrint QR code for produce provenance does not enhance the consumers trust of the local FSC, as it pre-exists. This implies that local FSCs with existing and functional trust mechanisms do not benefit from trust-enhancing mechanisms such as blockchain-enabled traceability. Future work may consider data privacy in FSCs and automating FSC data entry to reduce the risk of fraud.
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    Open Access
    Blockchain-enabled weather index crop insurance for smallholder farmers
    (2025) Muvhu, Tatenda; Kanjere, Julian
    Weather index crop insurance is an innovative approach to protect farmers against financial losses incurred due to adverse weather events that reduce crop yield. This type of insurance has the potential to be more affordable to underprivileged communities in emerging economies as it incurs lower transaction costs compared to conventional insurance, and it reduces both adverse selection and moral hazard in insurance provision. This thesis designs and implements a weather index crop insurance platform on the Algorand blockchain to enable low-cost, secure, transparent, efficient and easily verifiable transactions between weather data providers, insurers and farmers. To guide the implementation, an examination of the present state of weather index crop insurance in South Africa, its benefits and limitations, and the possibility of using blockchain technology to tackle some of the challenges faced by smallholder farmers when using conventional crop insurance methods is done. These challenges include long claim cycles, costly claim disputes and paper-heavy policies. The prototype weather index crop insurance platform improves the efficiency of the insurance process for weather data management, insurance policy management and insurance payouts processing. The platform stores transactions on the blockchain for transparency and verifiability and streamlines the insurance payout process with the use of auto-triggered payouts when weather data-dependent strike conditions attached to an insurance policy are met. Additionally, it digitizes policy management, eliminating the need for paper. Tests on the platform show that a farmer's request to join an insurance policy is finalized in an average of 9.13 seconds, from clicking “Join” to confirming the transaction and logging details on the blockchain. This process incurs a fixed transaction fee of 0.001 ALGO (approximately ZAR 0.002 as at 06/08/2023). Compared to traditional insurance applications, which take days to confirm, this is significantly faster and cheaper. Payouts on the platform are processed with an average processing time of 16 seconds from the detection of a strike event, in sharp contrast with conventional insurance where payout processing can take days. Further, in contrast to traditional insurance schemes, the weather index crop insurance platform requires fewer communication rounds between insurance actors. This benefits farmers with a simplified insurance policy enrollment process, reduced administrative burden, and faster payout processing. Load tests show that deploying the platform behind a load balancer, which distributes workload across multiple resources, enhances response time and overall performance, enabling it to handle more concurrent requests.
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    Open Access
    Leveraging smart contracts to mitigate off-taker risk in the Virtual Wheeling system
    (2026) Stapelberg, Johannes Stephanus; Davids, Allan; Kanjere, Julian
    The South African energy market is undergoing a fundamental shift toward renewable energy integration. In response to supply constraints and the global focus on sustainability, Eskom has proposed and is in the process of developing the Virtual Wheeling system, enabling independent power producers (IPPs) to sell energy via energy buyers– intermediaries matching off-taker energy requirements with IPP capacity– to off-takers through Eskom's grid infrastructure. While this system presents significant opportunities to open the energy market, foster competition, and accelerate renewable energy adoption, it also introduces risks for off-takers. These risks stem from the requirement for off-takers to continue paying their traditional electricity bills while simultaneously settling accounts with IPPs for alternative energy supply. The refunding process, which offsets the off-takers' double payment, follows a sequential payment process: first, distributors– typically municipalities– settle their Eskom bill. Eskom then calculates refunds and allocates funds to energy buyers. Finally, energy buyers allocate refunds proportionally to each off-taker in its portfolio, and ultimately off-takers are reimbursed. Any default in this process could jeopardise the entire system, while delays or estimations in refund calculations could impose temporary financial burdens on off-takers, discouraging participation and limiting the overall success of the system. This study explores the potential of blockchain-based smart contracts to address off-taker risks by automating the reconciliation and settlement of energy transactions within the Virtual Wheeling system. A prototype smart contract is developed to automatically calculate fees for each stakeholder and allocate funds in a single transaction upon off-taker payment, streamlining the multistep refunding process. The proposed system not only mitigates inherent process risks, but also enhances efficiency, transparency and trust in the Virtual Wheeling system. The research methodology includes a risk assessment of the current Virtual Wheeling system, the design and development of a smart contract prototype and the evaluation of its effectiveness in mitigating identified risks. The findings indicate that blockchain-enabled automation could significantly reduce default risks, enhance cash flow certainty for off-takers, and improve overall trust in the Virtual Wheeling system. However, regulatory challenges, interoperability with legacy infrastructure and scalability considerations remain critical factors for widespread adoption. This study contributes to the growing body of research on blockchain applications in energy markets and provides practical insights into how decentralised technologies can improve financial resilience in billing and settlement processes.
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    Open Access
    Mudala: A blockchain-based carbon credit exchange platform
    (2025) Nyandu, Liso; Kanjere, Julian
    Climate change is one of the most pressing issues of our time, with constantly increasing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions posing a severe threat to our planet. Businesses must adopt net-zero strategies such as reducing energy use, adopting carbon-neutral technologies, and trading on carbon markets to mitigate the effects of climate change. However, existing carbon markets, which are meant to incentivise emission reduction, face critical challenges such as a lack of trust and transparency, over-crediting, and high trading costs, hindering their effectiveness. We propose Mudala - a proof-of-concept carbon exchange built on the Algorand blockchain - to overcome these challenges. By leveraging blockchain technology's decentralised, immutable, and peer-to-peer transacting properties, Mudala enables firms to list carbon-offsetting projects, which, once approved by a regulator, are available for purchase as carbon credits by firms seeking to offset their emissions. The carbon credits exist as fungible tokens on a secure distributed ledger. Each firm authenticates using its unique Algorand account to access the web-based carbon exchange. The Paris Agreement highlights the urgent need for secure digital infrastructure to ensure data integrity and accurate emission tracking. The design of Mudala is undertaken within this context, and the resulting proof-of-concept demonstrates such secure digital infrastructure, which enhances trust, transparency, efficiency, and accessibility in carbon markets. To assess Mudala's effectiveness in addressing climate challenges, we employ a blockchain suitability workflow based on technical performance, data governance and access criteria. This analysis confirms the suitability of enabling Mudala's marketplace capability using blockchain. Our proof-of-concept successfully showcases secure digital infrastructure in carbon markets, aligned with the Paris Agreement's goals for data integrity and accurate emission tracking. While Mudala's features are promising, real world data on user engagement, project participation, and user feedback are crucial to fully validate its effectiveness and scalability