Each batch will have information such as production date, variety of sugarcane used, and the identification and geolocation of the rural property that provided the raw material, in addition to the microbiological analysis and physical and chemical parameters of that sugar, such as sucrose content, moisture and color. The batch receives a unique digital signature that will help to prevent adulteration . The product uses the Brazilian Agro-traceability System (Sibraar, acronym in Portuguese), developed by Embrapa Digital Agriculture and the first of its kind in Brazil. Notorious in financial operations, blockchain technology is inviolable and grants information security. The 2022 crop year begins bringing innovation to the sugar cane segment and consumers. From July on, the shelves of stores and supermarkets will begin to receive the first brown sugar with a traceability system based on blockchain, a state-of-the-art technology capable of proving the transparency of the product and the integrity of its information. Through a QR code stamped onto the package, anyone could verify the information about its origins and the process of manufacturing the sugar. Brown sugar is valued in the segment of natural and healthy products but still suffers from adulteration cases.. For three years, a team of specialists from Embrapa Digital Agriculture worked on the development of the Brazilian Agro-traceability System (Sibraar). The technology was customised for brown sugar and validated in the agroindustrial plant of the Usina Granelli sugar factory, a partner of the pilot project. Now, the company will be the first authorised to commercialise the tracked product, which will have the Embrapa Technology seal. The system was introduced in the production process in June, beginning with the first batches with traceability through blockchain. According to the licensing contract, a percentage of the sales will be reverted to Embrapa as royalties. The development of the project also relied on the support of the Cooperative of SugarCane Farmers from the state of São Paulo (Coplacana). The Sibraar technology allows the product's fabrication data to be stored in digital "blocks", using blockchain technology to build a temporary and unchangeable sequence of the records and thus ensuring the integrity of the information generated in the course of the production process. Each batch of Granelli’s brown sugar will be provided with the manufacturing data, the sugarcane variety, and the identification and geolocalization of the rural property which supplied the raw material for that batch, according to the rules established by the Brazilian General Personal Data Protection Law (LGPD, in Portuguese). It will also be provided information about the microbiologic analysis of the product and about the physical and chemical parameters of that sugar, such as sucrose content, moisture level, and color. The Embrapa system was initially conceived for the sugarcane energy segment, but it can also be customised for other agricultural chains, such as grains. The researcher Alexandre de Castro, leader of the project, observes the demand from domestic and foreign consumer markets for healthier and safer foods has grown. Traceability is fundamental to provide the final consumer with more information about the provenance and the process of production to ensure the competitiveness of the Brazilian product. “The adoption of tools with embedded technologies like blockchain emerges as an important alternative to meet this market, once it enables each manufactured batch to receive a unique digital signature to create a secure track for data auditability”, he asserts. Opportunity for licensing and new partnerships Embrapa Digital Agriculture can receive enquiries from the industry and companies in the sugar-energy segment that have an interest in licensing the Sibraar blockchain-based traceability technology. For more information, get in contact through the e-mail cnptia.negocios@embrapa.br Blockchain Sibraar is the first traceability software registered in the national market aimed atsugarcane agroindustries and developed with blockchain technology, which offers the consumer information by the manufactured batch through QR codes directly made available at the packages. All the agro-traceability architecture of the system was developed by Embrapa and the storage and data processing teams, and the final provision of information on the Internet occurs in the Embrapa servers following security protocols. Through cryptographic tools, each batch of sugar has its information stored in a block and receives a digital signature by Embrapa’s data centre. There, the software produces the automatic chaining of these blocks, creating a history of the manufacturing data over time. This sequence is then associated with a QR code that can grant consumers access to the information, needing only a smartphone for that. “With blockchain, the digital signature of each batch of the product contains the codified information of all the previous batches, in an unchangeable sequence. If there are any modifications in the database, the QR code labelled in the product packages will be automatically deactivated. This is the differential of using bidimensional barcodes associated with blockchain technology”, Castro explains. The verification step, which attests to the integrity of the tracked information, is distributed, in other words, it is in the consumers’ hands. “Anybody can check if the history of that record was manipulated. If any piece of data was modified, the QR code will not bring back information. It is like our life history, if it was possible to change anything in the past, your present as it is would be erased”, he compares. Competitive differential Questions related to the origin and traceability of the products had already been on Usina Granelli’s radar. According to the project’s director, Mariana Granelli, the possibility to incorporate technology like blockchain was an opportunity to give full transparency and to be recognised for best production practices and agreed upon in the production. “The market is even more demanding, as we become more transparent in this relationship, we believe the better our reputation will be with consumers”, she states. For this year, she anticipates the pilot production of four tonnes of brown sugar with traceability. The factory plans to extend the use of the technology to other products, such as demerara sugar and distilled alcohol. Founded 35 years ago, in the region of the Piracicaba river valley, Usina Granelli was born as a sugarcane mill for the industrial production of cachaça. In the 2000s, the company also started to produce ethanol and sugarcane syrup. Their sugar manufacturing is more recent, producing VHP (Very High Polarization) types, a raw sugar intended for exports, and demerara and brown sugar. The brown sugar with traceability through blockchain is the company’s bet to enter the segment of direct sales to consumers, through supermarkets, specialised markets and e-commerce platforms. “For five years, the factory has been improving the fabrication process, looking for ideal parameters of acceptance in the market. They aim to fill a consumer segment concerned about food healthiness and eager to remunerate sugar with higher added value. The traceability comes in this context, to offer a safe, quality food”, Granelli affirms. One of the main sugarcane by-products until the 19th Century, being substituted by white and refined sugar over time, the demand for brown sugar has grown in the last years along with the segment of natural products. Identified by a more artisanal manufacturing process, as it is a raw sugar with minimal processing in its manufacturing and without chemical additives for whitening and refining, brown sugar preserves some nutrients in much higher concentrations than white sugar, such as calcium, magnesium, phosphorus and potassium. Its price on the market shelves is, on average, up to five times higher than granulated white sugar, for example. Nevertheless, there are cases of product adulteration, in which granulated white sugar and other substances are mixed with brown sugar during the manufacturing stages. That results in a sugar with physical characteristics resembling the original product, but with different chemical properties. One of the laboratory parameters that help to identify brown sugar purity is the polarisation level, which defines the sucrose percentage of the product. This piece of data is tracked by the technology of Embrapa and can help the consumer attest to the quality and appropriateness of the product which is being bought. The advantage of blockchain technology, which is applied in financial transactions, is that the information is almost inviolable, ensuring not only the provenance but also the transparency of the information of sugar manufacturing. Open innovation “Sibraar is an example of pioneering technology in the sugar-energy chain, resulting in an Embrapa initiative for open innovation in the production sector”, states the head of Embrapa Digital Agriculture, Stanley Oliveira. This type of project focuses on a bigger connection between research and the demands of agriculture, which counts on partners that are committed to the adoption of the co-generated solution. “From this experience, Embrapa has a knowledge framework that will spare time in development and customisation of the technology for other applications and crops”, he emphasises. The project originated from the technical operation established in 2019 between Embrapa Digital Agriculture and the São Paulo Cooperative of Sugar Cane Farmers (Coplacana) - with which the Granelli Factory is associated -, which stipulates the generation of other active products and technological solutions based on artificial intelligence and remote sensing. For over three years, Coplacana has been trying to accelerate and give more focus to innovation, providing closer ties between the production sector and startups and research institutions like Embrapa. The development of the traceability system with blockchain built in a partnership with the Granelli Factory is considered a success case, according to the coop’s Business Director, Roberto Rossi. “We were able to bring to Embrapa, with its expertise, and out cooperation, that this perspective of access to new niches of the market, and together we can visualise a brown sugar tracked with blockchain which is innovating in Brazil”, affirms. Rossi believes that the new technologies will help Brazil, a world leader in sugar production, to reach even more demanding markets like European, North American and Canadian ones, and he sees the advance of digital agriculture in the sugar-energy segment with enthusiasm, bringing higher credibility and safety for the food. “With all these tools, it is possible to satisfy all kinds of consumers. Technology, productivity, income raise, access to new markets are important milestones and this is a future which accelerates itself, in which the information about food will be increasingly more fundamental to consumer decision-making of the”, he concludes.