Scaling Green Agriculture with Ultimus Blockchain Business Process Automation

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Background

Ultimus Client: eHempHouse
Industry: Sustainable Agriculture
Solutions: Organic Farming Compliance and Supply Chain Management

eHempHouse has created a new business model that will usher in a regenerative, socially responsible world of equality in education, food, and opportunity – while providing appropriate profit and ROI for itself and its investors - by helping individual Zambian citizens become sustainable, organic, and successful farming entrepreneurs. 

challenges and opportunity

Farming is a geographically dispersed endeavor that covers large areas, great distances, and remote locations.  eHemp needed a way to ensure that (1) its network of individual growers are following green practices and raising crops that can be certified Organic and (2) sufficient supplies would be available to efficiently operate the facilities that convert the raw materials into end products and deliver on orders.

eHempHouse realized that tracking farming practices and crop progress by exchanging photographs through SMS and social media messaging was inefficient, unverifiable, and not scalable.  Ultimus used its unique compositional architecture, industry-leading business process automation platform, and reusable Flobot® automations to rapidly and cost effectively deliver a flexible, end-to-end automated business process solution to these challenges.

The ultimus solution

The Ultimus organic farming compliance and supply chain management solution utilizes blockchain, mobile device, cloud, and low-code technologies to create a powerful, user friendly, and efficient business foundation for eHempHouse.  Ultimus reusable, composable digital assets and business process management capabilities pre-integrate and orchestrate these technologies into a powerful, end-to-end, cloud-based subscription service that eliminates upfront investment and effort.

eHempHouse’s solution starts with native Ultimus mobile apps that farmers download from Google Play or Apple App Store.  At defined intervals and stages in the growing cycle, the eHempHouse’s Ultimus Digital Process Automation Suite environment is configured to automatically launch a process instance, send notification of the task to the grower’s mobile device, and ensure that the grower accurately provides the required documentation within a defined time frame. 

eHempHouse’s Farmers’ Mobile App

Farmers use the mobile app to upload photographs of their agricultural methods and crops.  These pictures are automatically anchored to the Kensei/nChain blockchain to create an immutable and verifiable record of their validity.

The Ultimus DPA Suite’s built-in blockchain capabilities implement all blockchain-related aspects automatically: user interfaces, anchor validations, credentials and e-stamping, communications with the anchoring service and blockchain, blockchain history, and match proof validation.

Depending on business rules and configurations, farmer’s crop photos are placed in the Ultimus DPA Portal Inbox of a specific eHempHouse user, or placed in a group Queue, so that they can be reviewed and verified.  

Verification ensures that the photo’s geolocation data matches the defined field location and that it clearly documents the required information.

Reports are either accepted (and again anchored to the blockchain), rejected, or returned to the farmer for correction.  An Ultimus management dashboard provides a convenient overview of all process instances and projects.

eHempHouse’s Ultimus Process Instance Dashboard

 

Ultimus also provided management applications to onboard new farmers, manage user access, and onboard and manage individual projects.

eHempHouse’s Ultimus Project Management and Overview Dashboard

Summary

eHempHouse’s organic farming compliance and supply chain management solution is an important case study demonstrating:

1. The value and practical viability of using blockchain in business applications, in this case, to create an unalterable record of a physical item’s existence. 
2. Ultimus’ ability to quickly and cost effectively compose established and emerging technologies (e.g., blockchain, task automation, BPA, integration, and mobile) into sophisticated end-to-end solutions, orchestrated by the Ultimus business process automation platform; and
3. How the cloud and “solution as a service” pricing eliminates business process automation’s upfront investment, risk, and effort.