TL;DR Breakdown
- The UK is going hungry due to Covid job losses.
- 800 million people around the world are reported to be going to bed starving.
- Blockchain can help store information and make payments secure and efficient.
Blockchain: the covid hunger solution
There is a growing hunger in the EU, particularly in the UK. With people losing their jobs and joining the furlough scheme or universal credit, they find themselves turning to food banks due to money getting more scarce.
Families who cannot survive on the bare minimum are having to look for extra help. In London, the First Love Foundation is providing for many.
The foundation gathers food to be distributed to those in need. According to CNN, the pandemic has caused the gap between the haves and have-not to widen.
A few months ago, António Guterres, UN Secretary-General, explained how the pandemic would set regions back years.
The issue
According to KPMG, over 800 million people are sleeping with an empty stomach. One in nine people is starving most of the time.
What does not help global hunger is that over 10% of the food we have on this planet is lost and does not make it to retail stores. Food is lost on the farm as well as when it is transported and stored.
Fintech times have reported that 1.3 metric tonnes of food are thrown away, wasted, or lost. We do not have room to waste food when people are going hungry.
Blockchain
Blockchain technology is incredible for ensuring data is kept safe and secure and is easily accessible to the right people. What makes blockchains successful is that they are decentralized, meaning they have cut out the middle man, and they also have more than one validator making them harder to penetrate.
Depending on the scalability of the blockchain, transactions can be very efficient. Blockchains also operate an effective peer-to-peer transfer, meaning that the right people can see the information.
Blockchain hunger solution
You can use blockchain technology in several ways to address the hunger issue. The World Food Programme (WFP) has been using blockchain technology to assist food deliveries to 106,000 Syrian refugees and prevent food waste.
In Pakistan, WFP was able to use blockchain and register transactions in a secure and fast way.
You can use blockchain to store data, such as information on the amount of food and where it should go, and this information is hard to lose but easy to keep track of. Using blockchain to track food could help people be more diligent about how they use their money.
Many refugees are not able to access food because they do not have proper identification. Using a blockchain digital identity created by the UN would be trusted and kept secure.
You can use blockchain to track those in need and monitor where food is going. You can use the blockchain to store information at any point of the food journey.
Blockchain can be useful for making sure payments are handled efficiently and securely. Now more than ever blockchain is needed to control food shortages as more countries plunge into hunger due to the pandemics’ job woes.
