- Blockchain can strengthen North Carolina agriculture by improving food safety, securing land records, and fostering rural innovation through trusted, tamper-proof data
- An agricultural regulatory sandbox would allow farmers, startups, and cooperatives to test blockchain solutions without heavy government barriers, positioning the state as a leader in agtech
- Entrepreneurial innovation, not subsidies, will drive adoption — with blockchain tools helping small farms compete in premium markets and strengthening agriculture through voluntary, market-based solutions
North Carolina’s $111 billion agriculture sector is the backbone of our state’s economy. To stay competitive in a high-tech world, farms must embrace new tools. Blockchain — a secure, decentralized ledger — offers practical solutions: strengthening supply chain trust, protecting land records, and fostering rural innovation. With a light regulatory touch, North Carolina can lead in applying this technology to agriculture.
Farm-to-fork transparency and safety
Traceability is central to food safety. Outbreaks like the 2018 romaine lettuce recall show how hard it is to track contaminated products through disconnected records. Blockchain changes that by creating a shared, tamper-proof ledger across the supply chain. Walmart launched a pilot program in 2018 showing it could trace mangoes from store to farm in two seconds — a process that once took nearly a week. That speed saves lives and reduces waste.
For North Carolina, this means protecting and enhancing our agricultural brands. Our state grows, on average, 60 percent of America’s sweet potatoes and is a leader in pork and poultry. Blockchain could follow a sweet potato from Wilson County through washing, packing, and shipping, proving quality to buyers and quickly isolating issues when they arise. In an era when consumers demand transparency, a blockchain-backed “NC Grown” label could set our products apart.
Real-world challenges, practical solutions
Blockchain offers practical fixes for challenges farmers face every day:
- Food contamination: Immutable records let investigators isolate the source of a problem in seconds, sparing unaffected producers.
- Land title clarity: Digital, tamper-proof records reduce costly disputes and give farmers confidence in their most valuable asset.
- Organic certification: Transparent records of soil tests, seed sourcing, and inspections let small farmers prove compliance and access premium markets.
These aren’t gimmicks. They are solutions to persistent problems of traceability, record accuracy, and fraud prevention — areas where trust is essential.
Alongside pilot projects like IBM Food Trust and public‑sector pilots, researchers from Morocco contributed a more technical proposal: embedding IoT data (data collected from on-farm sensors, such as soil moisture, temperature, or livestock health monitors) into a blockchain via smart contracts — offering a blueprint, not just a proof of concept, for farm‑level automation and secure data logging
Protecting land and data integrity
Beyond food, blockchain safeguards the very ground we farm. While North Carolina’s land records system is strong, disputes and errors can still occur. A blockchain-based registry would lock in ownership rights, preventing tampering and providing redundancy if paper archives are lost. Families passing farms through generations could prove ownership quickly, lowering legal costs and unlocking investment opportunities.
The same logic applies to program compliance. Crop insurance contracts, conservation plans, or tobacco allotments often exist in paper files or scattered databases. Recording them on a blockchain ensures proof of compliance is permanent and transparent. Farmers and regulators alike would benefit from a single source of truth, reducing bureaucracy and disputes.
Encouraging innovation with a light-touch approach
If blockchain holds such promise, how should North Carolina respond? By fostering innovation, not smothering it. A regulatory sandbox — a policy tool already in place for financial and insurance tech — lets innovators pilot new services under temporary, lighter regulation.
Agriculture deserves the same opportunity. A sandbox for agtech would let farmers, startups, and cooperatives test blockchain tracking or land-record pilots without regulatory barriers. Lawmakers could waive certain requirements for limited trials while maintaining core consumer protections. Everyone benefits: entrepreneurs refine their ideas, regulators see the risks and rewards, and North Carolina strengthens its reputation as a hub for agricultural innovation.
North Carolina’s Regulatory Sandbox Act of 2021 excluded agriculture by limiting participation to financial and insurance products. Expanding it to cover farming would create the nation’s first agricultural sandbox, opening doors for blockchain-based food traceability and land registries and providing regulatory certainty. Linking the Research Triangle’s tech hub with our rural communities would ensure benefits flow both ways — strengthening farms and the state economy alike.
The John Locke Foundation has urged expanding the sandbox concept beyond finance for precisely this reason. Utah has seen success with broad sandboxes covering multiple industries. North Carolina shouldn’t fall behind. A light-touch, innovation-friendly approach doesn’t require subsidies — just room for entrepreneurship to grow.
Growing rural competitiveness
Blockchain isn’t about technology for its own sake. It’s about ensuring North Carolina’s 42,000 farms — most of them small, family-run operations — stay competitive. Practical tools, like mobile apps connected to blockchain networks, can help even the smallest growers track crops or improve product quality.
Yet rural infrastructure challenges — such as limited broadband access, inconsistent cell coverage, and high upfront technology costs — remain significant hurdles for farmers seeking to adopt blockchain systems. Addressing these gaps through improved rural broadband and targeted agtech support would ensure that blockchain’s benefits are accessible not just to large operators, but also to small, family-run farms that form the backbone of North Carolina agriculture.
Traceability could help small farms access premium markets. A cooperative of poultry farmers, for instance, could log free-range hours or feed sources on a blockchain, proving animal welfare standards and commanding better prices. Likewise, secure land titles give owners the confidence to invest or use land as collateral for growth.
Sowing innovation, reaping trust
North Carolina’s farmers have always been innovators. Blockchain and decentralized technologies are new tools that help them do what they do best: feed families and drive the economy with integrity and efficiency. By improving traceability and protecting land rights, blockchain can deliver safer food, stronger records, and greater consumer trust.
With wise policies that champion light-touch regulation and sandbox experimentation, North Carolina can pioneer agricultural innovation. From a sweet potato farmer in Nash County proving her crop’s origin, to a hog farmer reducing paperwork with digital health records, to a family securing inherited land with blockchain-backed titles — the benefits are tangible.
By connecting our agricultural heritage with future innovation, the Tar Heel State can ensure its farms remain competitive and prosperous. Blockchain’s promise is, at its core, the promise of greater trust and opportunity. With the right policies, North Carolina can harvest that promise — keeping agriculture both the backbone of our economy and a point of national pride.
