Optimizing the Trust Factor of Organic Agriculture Business

Abstract

Organic food consumption among consumers is no longer considered as a luxury lifestyle behaviour. When looking at consumer market statistics, it is possible to see positive growth in organic agriculture business. It is also notable that organic foods tend to be sold at higher prices when compared with non-organic foods available in the market. This is mainly because additional effort which organic crop farmers need to put on organic products with compared to regular crops. Even though organic products are selling at higher prices than the usual, there is a significant tendency among consumers to buy organic products mainly due to their associated health and environment benefits. However, when looking at the current context or organic agriculture business, it is possible to say that consumers have to keep their trust on so-called organic certification authorities on their organic product certifications. In the present context, the process of verifying the organic food compliance parameters against crops are not transparent to the end users and it directly leads to improve distrust among end consumers about the products that they purchase. This study has been carried out to formulate a computer science approach to optimize the trust factor in organic agriculture ecosystem. In order to come up with an end solution, within this study, several candidate systems have been analyzed including blockchain systems. At the end, a computer science based model will be proposed to improve trust factors within the organic agriculture ecosystem.