Ứng dụng công nghệ blockchain cho chuỗi cung ứng nông sản theo hướng bền vững ở Việt Nam: Phân tích SWOT

at ‘the In- ternet of Information’. Therefore, blockchain technol- ogy is applied in a wide range of industries such as healthcare, education, tourism, retail, pharmaceuti- cal industry, public sector, finance, and supply chain. Among these, blockchain platform seems to be po- tentially suitable to supply chain management. This is because most salient features of blockchain are dis- tributed architecture in the peer-to-peer network, im- mutability of data – impossible to tamper with as soon as transactional approval, and transacted with- out the intermediaries 7–9. The blockchain technology promises to provide the transparency among supply chain agents, traceability of food products, and make the supply networks visible8. It is subsequently ar- gued that blockchain are befitting with supply chain operations and management. Vietnamese agriculture is at the crossroad 10. Since the ‘Doi Moi’(Renovation) reform in 1986, Vietnam agriculture sector has achieved enormous progress, particularly enhancing the performance, increas- ing agricultural yields, and exportation of agri-food abroad. Besides these achievements, this sector needs to consider the improvement of not only quantita- tive output but also the quality of products for the purpose of efficiency and effectiveness gains10. In other words, Vietnam agriculture sectormight seek to “do more with less” and reach sustainable agricultural productivity and growth 10. In the wake of advanced technology, agriculture sec- tor seems to be beneficiary from these advances for higher agriculture higher productivity and growth. Among these, blockchain in align with the Inter- net of Things, sensors, mobile network infrastructure can attribute to the productivity of agriculture sector in general and agri-food supply chains in particular. There is thus a convergence between agriculture and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in our modern world. In Vietnam, ICT enterprises have had the proof of concept in blockchain plat- forms since mid-2018 and some initiatives in relevant to tracing agri-foods have implemented blockchain in reality such as wowtrace, fruitchain, agriden- tial11 mostly appearing in the South of Vietnam (i.e, Mekong Delta, Central Highland). However, the literature on blockchain-based supply chains for the agri-food industry in Vietnam so far seems scare to our best knowledge. This study is an initial effort to synthesize the state-of-art literature of blockchain-based supply chains in Vietnam through an approach thatwe apply a SWOTanalysis to identify internal and external factors for Vietnamese agri-food supply chain management. On this basis, we propose the mutual effects of blockchain on sustainable devel- opment. We outline this paper into five sections. The first introduces the blockchain in agri-food supply chain management in Vietnam. The next section provides the literature on blockchain, agri-food supply chains, and state-of-the-art Vietnam agriculture. Third, we present the SWOT analysis method. The fourth dis- cusses on SWOTanalysis, the benefits and drawbacks, the association between blockchain and sustainabil- ity. We briefly conclude the research and offer some policy implications for relevant stakeholders. LITERATURE REVIEW The United Nations (UN) organization acclaims the 2030 agenda for sustainable development goals, which is a plan of actions for people, planet, and prosper- ity. Three dimensions of sustainable development are the economic, social, and environmental factors12. According to World Business Council for Sustainable Development13, sustainability refers to the “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their need”. In other words, human beings make an effort to practice their quality of life forward sustainable development not only in present but also for long-term initiatives. Vietnam Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate was around 6.6%, reaching the best performance at 7.08% in 2018, top growth performers amongASEAN countries14. Vietnam is on the road to integration since the Doi Moi (Renovation) 1986. Chronologi- cally, Vietnam became the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)membership and normaliza- tion of United State and Vietnam relations in 1995; 1279 Science & Technology Development Journal – Economics - Law andManagement, 5(1):1278-1289 participated in World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2006; leveraged the Vietnam-Japan Economic Part- nership (VJEP) in 2008; signed the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partner- ship (CPTPP) in 2018; and achieved the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreements (EVFTA) in 201915. Conse- quently, Vietnam political and economic position has exposed to be praised in the world andAsian commu- nity. To meet the demands of partnership, Vietnam is at the turning point and makes an effort to industri- alize array of industries by embracing high-tech solu- tions in agricultural, industrial, and service sectors. The share of agriculture inGDPhas been relatively flat since the mid-2000s. In fact, the share of agricultural GDP was around 19% among other sectors, as com- pared to Thailand ranging from 10% to 12% 10. Most of the food crop areas in Vietnam are rice (around 70%), fruit, vegetables, pulses (10%), maize (5%), roots and rubbers (5%), oil crops, and wheat10. The rate of employment in agriculture sector has declined since 2000. In fact, 70% of total employment get in- volved in agriculture sector in 2000while the decrease labor was at 50% of total employment in 2013 10. SomeVietnamese agri-food is ranked as top five in ex- porters in global rank. For example, in terms of total volume, cashews and black pepper are at number one; coffee and cassava are at number two; rice is at num- ber three; rubber and tea share at number four and five, respectively10. By the end of 2018, the agricultural land area in Vietnam was 27,289,454 hectares, which makes up 39.25 percent of Vietnam’s total land area 16. De- spite the government has launched numerous policies to encourage land consolidation, land fragmentation negatively affects land profitability and productivity growth. In fact, land fragmentation leads to severe production costs including private costs (e.g., land loss due to boundaries, cumbersome management of infrastructures, increased disputes amongneighbors), and public costs (e.g., increasing difficulties in crop and land use planning). In particular, half of 9million farms in Viet Nam are subsistence farms occupying less than 0.5 hectares17. In recent years, the structure of the agricultural sector has shifted toward market demand and adaptation to climate change, which re- flected firstly in changing the farm household struc- ture. According to the official results of the Rural, Agricultural and Fishery Census 2016, compared to the year 2011, the number of farm household was 8.58 million, decreased by 8.5%. Furthermore, from 2011 to 2017, the number of farms in operation throughout Vietnamhad a rising trend but was down in 2018with approximately 31.67 thousand farms. Although there was a slight increase in the number of farms in 2019, this rise was also insignificant. (Figure 1). In the meanwhile, the number of agricultural co- operatives increases annually, reflecting the bigger development of farmers’ scale. For the country as a whole, by the end of 2019, there were approxi- mately 15,414 agricultural cooperatives18, which in- creased by 11.2% compared to the year 2018. How- ever, the GDP contribution of agricultural cooper- atives in Vietnam gradually decreased from 8.1% in 2001 to 5.1% in 2018 16. The main reason for the low contribution is related to ineffective performance. In addition, the linkage between stakeholders in the agri- cultural sector still remains some constraints. First, the equal market environment has not been enough transparent and conducive for all private, public, and foreign firms10. Second, there has been a growing innovative partnership between universities and en- trepreneurs with high-tech solutions to bring compet- itive gains but the success rate is not overwhelming19. Third, agricultural policies have not facilitated busi- ness services to yield strong domestic private compa- nies17. Hence, to achieve amore reinvigorate produc- tivity growth and competitiveness in global agricul- tural markets, Vietnammust have a better integration of stakeholders into agricultural supply chains by re- organizing and applying blockchain technology. The Vietnam government proactively has paid atten- tion to high-tech applications and digitalization of economy. As amatter of fact, some crucial policy doc- uments have been released to build the digital econ- omy. For example, Decision No. 392/QĐ-TTg (2015) set targets on information technology development through to 2020 with a vision toward 2025; Decision 16/CT-TTg approved by the Prime Minister to for- tify the progress towards Industry 4.0 20. Specifically, the Prime Minister issued the Decree 100/QĐ-TTG, which implements the initiatives in regards to estab- lishing systems for product traceability and prove- nance in Vietnam since January 2019. Till 2025, at least 30 percent total products would be traced by disruptive technology such as RFID, QR codes, NFC matching with international trading standards in terms of data transactions. These policy documents accordingly prove that the Vietnamese government has devoted a great deal of effort to digitalize the econ- omy in the wake of Industry 4.0 movement. For product traceability, blockchain plays an im- portant role in the design and implementation of activities related to managing the supply chains. Blockchain refers to a distributed ledger and im- mutable database for securely exchanging data 21. 1280 Science & Technology Development Journal – Economics - Law andManagement, 5(1):1278-1289 Figure 1: Number of farms in Vietnam from 2011 to 2019 (in 1,000 farms)a aSource: General Statistic Office of Vietnam, various issues Block regarded as a node contains data for transac- tion; and cryptographically linking these blocks forms a chain. In other words, blockchain is a distributed peer-to-peer network where nodes can transact with- out a trusted intermediary 22. Figure 2 indicates the process of transaction in blockchain23. Once a trans- action occurs, a distributed ledger is transferred to computer nodes in the P2P network. These nodes en- crypt and verify the information of blocks by using a cryptographic algorithm. In the case of consensus agreements among majority of computers, the trans- action is valid and the new block of data is added into the chains by the way that the hash in this new block must be the same as the hash in the previous block. If do so, the block of data is time-stamped and impos- sible to tamper with. Therefore, the notable features of these blocks in the chain are immutable, tamper proof, secure, trust, and transparent21,24. There are three types of blockchains: public, private, and hybrid blockchain network. First, a public or per- missionless network means everyone can take part in the verification process without authorization. Com- puter networks participating in proof of work are of- ten rewarded by cryptocurrency, for example bitcoin, ethereum8. In contrast, private or permissioned net- work requires that verification nodes are known and identified by a central authority or database 8. Finally, a hybrid network refers to a public permissioned net- work whose features are somewhere in the middle of the two above. There are numbers of stakehold- ers getting involved in supply chain so that private blockchain network is preferable to be used. The pop- ular platforms built to this purpose are Hyperledger, Sawtooth, Fabric, Ripe. Io8,9. Blockchain technology fits well with the management of supply chains, particularly in agriculture to moni- tor the information, financial, and physical flows from farm to fork in terms of traceability. According to Behnke and Marijn, food traceability plays an im- portant role in warranting the food safety and qual- ity, triggering the confidence and satisfaction of con- sumers25. This is because all actors in the supply chain can make the flows of product visible by tracing (backward follow-up) and tracking (forward follow- up) at any steps. Figure 3 illustrates the physical flow from providers, producers, processing, distribution, retailers, to con- sumers combined with digital flow using barcodes, QR codes, NFC, RFID technology, sensors record- ing data in every step. Blockchain articulates these steps in P2P network9. More importantly, all ac- tors take into account smart contracts – “a comput- erized transaction protocol that executes the terms of a contract”22 – the verified agreements of all actors in real time. Smart contracts can be not only useful in various industries with moving large food quantities in terms of logistics and inventory but also potential 1281 Science & Technology Development Journal – Economics - Law andManagement, 5(1):1278-1289 Figure 2: A process of blockchain transactiona aSource: Tapscott, 2017 Figure 3: Blockchain technology in agri-food supply chaina aSource: Kamilaris et al., 2019 to the growing field of smart agriculture. The earli- est known definition for smart contracts provides a better understanding of the relationship between le- gal and social institutions26, in which they refer to secure, machine-readable and executable programs that can automate specified procedure in legal con- texts. In particular, based on dynamic clauses and data of a smart agriculture infrastructure, smart con- tracts formulate negotiations between involved par- ties 27. Hence, quality constraints of agricultural sup- ply chain set by the all parties can be met, such as monitoring the quality, size and texture of fruits. Ac- cording to Helo and Hao, smart contracts support overall quality improvement of supply chains, cost and risk reduction, and trust enhancement8. Gen- erally, unlike the traditional supply chain where re- lationship in pair is established, smart contracts elim- inate the information asymmetry in the whole as well as part of supply chain. Though blockchain technology has emerged in the re- cent decade and most used for cryptocurrency, there have been a number of blockchain platforms built for supply chain traceability over the globe. In devel- oped countries, some technologies for traceability are well-known such as FarmShare, AgriLedger, Prove- nance, Arc-Net, Bart.Digital, Bext360 9, AgriBlock- IoT1. Similarly, Vietnamese ICT start-up enterprises 1282 Science & Technology Development Journal – Economics - Law andManagement, 5(1):1278-1289 catch up with the wave of high-tech innovation re- garding blockchain applications in agriculture. For example, wowtrace initiative provides the solution of blockchain-enabled traceability in food chains with the notable features of ensuring transparency, en- hancing the competitive advantage, gaining the qual- ity of products, and reducing risk11. Furthermore, Vietnam Blockchain Corporation, exposing the lead- ing of blockchain technology not only in Vietnam but also in Asia, has offered blockchain-related plat- form for manufacturing, logistics, finance, agricul- ture, smart city, and public service provisions28. Ad- ditionally, TE-Food.vn, a farm-to-table fresh food traceability solution over the globe, did business in using blockchain for food traceability since 2018. To- mochain, a pioneer of blockchain disruptive technol- ogy in Vietnam, especially in cryptocurrency 29. Though Vietnam ICT enterprises have engaged in digitalization, the rapid pace of the blockchain-based solutions for agriculture seems not to meet the po- tential growth of agriculture in terms of quantita- tive and qualitative manner. Because blockchain technology has been applied in some typical agri- production provinces such as Mekong Delta (i.e., Dong Thap provice) and Central Highland (i.e., Lam Dong) rather thanother productive agri-foodproduc- ers in Vietnam. The mango industry has been one of the five key industries in the Dong Thap province’s Agriculture Restructuring Scheme. In fact, Dong Thap province has 9,200 hectares of mango with ap- proximate 100,000 tons annual output; and also ex- ports 93, 000 tons of mangoes to “demanding mar- kets” such as Japan, Australia, South Korea and Rus- sia yearly. However, it remains difficulties to enter the US market. After 10 years of negotiations with Viet- Gap andGlobalGap standards, with blockchain-based traceability technology, Vietnam’s first eight tons of mangoes collected from My Xuong Mango Cooper- ative in Cao Lanh, Dong Thap have reached the US market on April 18, 2020. My Xuong Mango Coop- erative cooperated with the VBC to store all essential information involving its fruits on the blockchain to ensure traceability and fight against copycats. More- over, this project combines with eco-tourismdevelop- ment, where tourists or tourism agency can purchase mangoes in advance through smart contracts. Hence, this facilitate the local economy. Furthermore, as an agricultural hub of the whole country, currently, Lam Dong province has 21 enterprises that have applied blockchain technology to control the supply, food hy- giene and traceability for fruit and vegetable such as strawberry, carrot, potato30. Blockchain technology promises to beneficial provi- sions to create a more sustainable world31,32 First, it provides more transparency about the supply chain actors and the reliable provenance across the agri- food supply chains. Second, thanks to smart con- tracts, there is a limitation of information asymme- try among individual and collective action, hence strengthening the accountability and reducing bu- reaucracy. Third, it motivates human beings more en- vironmentally friendly behavior. Therefore, this pa- per aims to analyze the SWOT analysis and bene- fits and drawbacks of blockchain-based traceability in Vietnam, linking with sustainable development. RESEARCHMETHOD Thestudy attempts to analyze the situation ofVietnam agri-food supply chain management. For this pur- pose, a technique of SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses Opportunities, and Threats) analysis32 has been ap- plied to evaluate the position of agri-food supply chains in Vietnam. The general observations and the review of agri-food supply chains forwarding sustain- able agricultural development in Vietnam have moti- vated this study. The SWOT analysis is a strategic planning technique, preliminarily used for evaluation of a project or a busi- ness venture. SWOT stands for strength, weakness, opportunities, and threats, which are listed in the four quadrants of a 2x2 grid associated with the favorable and unfavorable internal and external issues respec- tively. Strengths and weaknesses mention the ad- vantages and disadvantages inside the organization, while opportunities and threats represent the exter- nal factors impacting on the organization. On the one hand, the former illustrates the strong points and weak points in terms of human resources, physical re- sources, financial resources, activities and processes, and experiences; on the other hand, the later describes the future trends in the field we analyze, the economy conditions, funding resources, demographics, phys- ical environment, legislation, and local, national, or internal events. The SWOT analysis becomes increasingly popular in the academic peer-reviewed literature. Not only does this tool support analyzing and positioning the strat- egy of the organization, but also it is used for planning purposes. The SWOT analysis has been extended far away from the organization’s scope toward the coun- try, and industry33. This paper applies SWOT analysis at the nation-wide scope and agriculture industry to provide analysis and interpretations of different aspects of agri-food supply 1283 Science & Technology Development Journal – Economics - Law andManagement, 5(1):1278-1289 chains in terms of its strengths, weaknesses, oppor- tunities and threats. The corpus of literature reveals that a SWOT analysis has been embraced in the study of short food supply chain system in Europe 34, sus- tainable agriculture intensification systems and agri- cultural extension systems in Africa 35, resilience of smallholder farmer in Italy36. We also found the SWOT analysis for biofuel potential for transporta- tion in Vietnam37. However, to our best knowledge, the SWOT analysis for blockchain-based traceability in agri-food supply chains in Vietnam seems to be silent. Therefore, we conduct this research to fill this gap. We use the case study research method with the archival data from prestigious source of information: (1) peer-reviewed scientific papers (SCOPUS and ISI), (2) white reports (i.e., WorldBank, PwC, FAO) and (3) English-published e-newspapers in Vietnam (i.e., Vietnamnet, VNExpress, SaigonTimes). We use the interpretive technique to conduct this study. RESEARCH RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS SWOT analysis Wepresent a SWOTmatrix for blockchain-based sup- ply chains in the Vietnam agriculture sector at the nation-wide scope and agriculture industry in a Ta- ble 1. Strengths The strengths of Vietnamese blockchain technology- based agri-food supply chains lie in its huge num- bers of high-tech enterprises starting up in this sector. With the technological infrastructure in the mobile network (3G service), blockchain technology is get- ting more and more sufficient to meet consumers’ in- terests concerning agri-food safety and security. Con- sumers becomemore confident in choosing agri-food for their family as well as more loyal to these brands. Blockchain technology could also facilitate the devel- opment of the Vietnam farming system based on im- proving agri-food supply chains by providing trans- parency and traceability. Simultaneously, it also im- proves the behaviors of the stakeholders such as their reliability and responsibility. Weakness Despite the enormous strengths inherent in blockchain-based supply chains in Vietnam, its effi- cacy in contributing to the national agriculture sector still has limited. We are facing difficulties concerning the cost of developing blockchain infrastructure (hardware) and platform (software) because of small farming scale triggers. Additionally, blockchain technology in Vietnam still is at the beginning stage and smallholder farmers have not enough knowledge about it. They have also not been encouraged on adding value to their farm produce by way of quality, processing, packaging, and marketing as well as applying blockchain technology to improve their reputation. That leads to the fact that their products not to be able to compete in the international market. Therefore, scalability is still a big obstacle that they should overcome. Opportunities Opportunities abound for Vietnam to be onward to a place of reckoning in blockchain technology-based agri-food supply chains. These opportunities include high-tech start-ups with the support of government’s policies, the IoT devices for blockchain technology with the support of Vietnam 5G service, ICT initia- tives with the financial support of foreign investors. Vietnam will be soon one of the fast-growing mar- kets in ICT in the world. Additionally, to export the agri-food products to important markets like the EU, Japan, and the US with the highest quality and food safety requirements, food traceability is obli- gated38,39. Threats The push towards intensifying blockchain technol- ogy adoption in the agri-food sector might likely be threatened by the competition from ASEAN coun- tries like Thailand, and the climate change being ex- perienced globally. Vietnam still lags behind Thai- land in the application of blockchain in agriculture40. One of the main reasons is the lack of information about agri-food products that make it very difficult to compete with Thai products. Agriculture is also likely to be directly affected by climate change such as the drought in Mekong Delta, and rainfall short- age in Central Highland. The effects of urbaniza- tion and industrilization on agriculture might likely be made more pronounced as a result of decreasing labor forces in the agricultural sector. Furthermore, there are some difficulties in retrieving information on suppliers and lacking a common language of busi- ness in blockchain-based traceability Sustainable development This section proposes the link between the strengths of blockchain technology supply chain abovemen- tioned and sustainable development of agriculture. 1284 Science & Technology Development Journal – Economics - Law andManagement, 5(1):1278-1289 Table 1: The SWOT analysis of blockchain-based supply chains in Vietnam agriculture sector Strengths Weaknesses - More than two-thirds (around 60-70%) of Vietnam agri- cultural employment participates in the agriculture indus- try, higher than other ASEAN countries 10. - There are exponential growing numbers of high-tech en- terprises starting up in the information and communica- tion technology field 41. - Blockchain technology drive eco-friendly behaviors in token economy (paperless, less waste and CO2 emis- sion,) 8,9. - Smart contracts incentivize the sharing economy, par- ticularly agriculture cooperatives, enhancing overall eco- nomic efficiency 24. - Blockchain technology leads to trust, transparency, ac- countability, controlling food safety and security, and therefore producing satisfaction of customers 9,21. - The system becomes robust because of fault-tolerance 1. - Such exemplary and successful cases as wowtrace and AgriDential solutions stimulate other blockchain plat- forms to commercialize in Vietnam farming 11,28. - Small and modest farming scale triggers the difficulty of investing IoTdevices, and then collects and process data 42. - Investment and development of blockchain infrastruc- ture (hardware) and platform (software) for agriculture is quite costly 43. - Most smallholder farmers have less understanding of blockchain technology 43. - Blockchain technology is till infancy and under- construction regarding standards for transactions across the world8. - Blockchain needs a large number of transactions, requir- ing huge size and bandwidth 44. - Linking between the chains of blocks and current ERP system is limited and unsynchronized 45. - There is a barrier to scalability 24. Opportunities Threats - Vietnam national government encourages and promotes start-ups in the high-tech industry20. - Vietnam 5G services – technically supporting the IoT devices that record data for blockchain technology in dis- tributed network, intends to launch in 2020 46. - Vietnam becomes one of the fast-growing start-ups in the ICT industry in the world 47. - EVFTA and US-Vietnam relations pave the way for ex- porting Vietnamese agri-food products to these markets, which are obligated to food traceability 15. - The structure of the Vietnamese population is at golden age. Most are young (under 35 accounting for 60% of nearly 100 million people), providing a young, abundant, and quality manpower for developing agriculture 14. - Foreign investors from developed countries are willing to grant financial sources for ICT initiatives in Vietnam 20. - Annual techfest – an innovative technopreneur contest in Vietnam, keeps the momentum of high-tech business ven- tures going 48. - An increasingly Vietnam’s agricultural export growth at 142% from 2008 to 2018 14. - Competitors from ASEAN countries (not only) in blockchain technology adoption, particularly Thailand agriculture 49. - Climate changes demotivate farmers to produce and pro- cess agri-food (i.e. drought in Mekong Delta, rainfall shortage in Central Highland) 50. - Labor forces in agriculture tend to be decreased because urbanization urges them to leave their rural areas and mi- grate into cities 10. - Suppliers do not want to join in the systems to share in- formation 45. - There is an absence of regulatory blockchain and a com- mon language of business in blockchain-based traceabil- ity 51. The components of a sustainable food system include three aspects. First, the economic sustainability of a food system illustrates several factors as profit to producers, manufacturers, and retailers and the cost to consumers. Second, the environmental sustain- ability of a food system refers to land use, waste management, greenhouse gas emissions and biolog- ical diversity. Finally, social sustainability of a food system describes food quality, food quantity, food safety, employment, employee welfare, health and nutrition52. From the viewpoints of three sustain- able dimensions, we synthesize the nexus between the blockchain-based applications and food system sus- tainability in Table 2, that today food system benefits from the blockchain traceability systems. CONCLUSION AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS This study is significantly important to provide the SWOT analysis of blockchain-based supply chains 1285 Science & Technology Development Journal – Economics - Law andManagement, 5(1):1278-1289 Table 2: Blockchain-based supply chain for agriculture and sustainability Economic impacts (Profits) Environmental impacts (Planet) Social impacts (People) - Exclusion on third-party agents or intermediaries among supply chain partnership 24. - Encouragement in sharing econ- omy models such as agriculture cooperatives 53. - Reduction in transactional cost 8,24. - Stimulation on the development of short food supply chains 9. - Development the novel busi- ness model of food-tourism that involved agriculture with tourism 28. - Setting up the efficient price in markets because information asymmetries are eliminated among stakeholders 54. - High efficiency of internal operation procedures 8. - Reduction inCO2 emission due tomis- taken routing or under-optimized trans- portation problems 55. - Avoidance of paper-based documents about procedures among partners for agreement 55. - Reduction in energy consumption (turn-off or hibernate IoT devices in the internal of data transmission or token used) 56. - Elimination of fertilizer and chemi- cal substances remained in food prod- ucts 43. - Minimization on contaminated food scandals 57. - Compliancewith theHACPP andVi- etGap 58. Improvement in customer satisfaction: - Food safety and security 57. - Enhancement in collaboration and cooperation 43. - Trust and transparency 8,21. Support local agri-business 9,43. for agriculture in Vietnam and the links between the strengths of blockchains applied for supply chains and the sustainable development. It is a preliminary stage for both local and national authorities to devise holis- tic strategic planning of the agriculture industry in tandem with the evolution of advanced technology. The agriculture sector and high-tech application seem to move at an accelerating pace but different paces. Therefore, it is ultimately necessary to have a master plan regarding the convergence agriculture and IT in- dustry for the purpose of improving the efficiency, ef- fectiveness, and sustainability in the agriculture sec- tor. It seems that blockchain is a promising technology to- wards a transparent supply chain of various agricul- tural products; however, there are still many barriers and challenges to hinder its wider popularity among farmers and systems in Vietnam. Hence, it is impor- tant to prescribe some policies for blockchain food traceability in the context of Vietnam agriculture sec- tor. First, blockchain technology applied in agriculture is more developed in Southern regions, particularly in Mekong Delta and Highland areas, while the adop- tion of IoT devices is more popular in the Northern regions. However, the use of blockchain technology goes without IoT devices. Therefore, both inclusively support each other in the disruptive technology ap- plied in agriculture. Second, blockchain traceability has been widely exe- cuted for various types of products such as mango, ly- chee, dragon fruits, durian. It had better apply this disruptive technology not only in farming but also in the livestock industry. Third, we suggest the business model of cooperatives aiming to sharing economy. Hence, the cooperatives do business by planning and organizing eco-tourism services in the harvesting seasons. Such the project of “my mango garden” at My Xuyen – Dong Thap province, there has been a cooperative selling mangos for tourists or tourism agency in advance. Fourth, we suggest developing more qualified IT de- velopers in blockchain technology in the same man- ners as Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, and IoT; con- sequently, developing an ecosystem of blockchain technology surrounds advanced technology in Viet- namese agriculture. Finally, a number of important limitations need to be considered. First, we adopted the desk research method, so that it cannot avoid the biased perspec- tive made by authors. For the robustness and more insight, we expect to conduct in-depth interviews with stakeholders (i.e., blockchain platform develop- ers, farmers, local authorities) involving in develop- ing and using blockchain relevant to agri-food sup- ply chain in Vietnam. Second, we approach the re- search from the management viewpoints, so that fu- ture research expects to reveal more technical issues. 1286 Science & Technology Development Journal – Economics - Law andManagement, 5(1):1278-1289 Both management and technical viewpoints can pro- vide with a holistic view about thi s research topic. Thirdly, some case studies of blockchain application namely Agridential, which have been succeeded in practices such as My Xuyen project, still are silent in academia. Therefore, we attempt to unveil these typi- cal cases get published scholarly. ABBREVIATION ASEAN: Association of Southeast Asian Nations. ERP: Enterprise Resource Planning EVFTA: EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement FAO: Food and Agriculture Organization GDP: Gross Domestic Product HACCP:Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point ICT: Information and Communication Technology IoT: Internet of Thing IT: Infomration Technology NFC: Near-Field Communications QR: Quick Response RFID: Radio Frequency Identification SCM: Supply Chain Management SDGs: Sustainable Development Goals SWOT: Strength, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats. VietGAP: Vietnam Good Agricultural Practice UN: United Nation CONFLICTS OF INTEREST Theauthors have no conflicts of interest to declare. All co-authors have seen and agree with the contents of the manuscript and final version of the paper, there is no financial interest to report. AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS Both TranThien Vu and TrinhHoangHongHue con- tributed to the design and implementation of the re- search, to the analysis of the results and discussions, and to the writing of the manuscript. 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Đây là bài báo công bố mở được phát hành theo các điều khoản của the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Ứng dụng công nghệ blockchain cho chuỗi cung ứng nông sản theo hướng bền vững ở Việt Nam: phân tích SWOT Trần Thiện Vũ1,*, Trịnh Hoàng Hồng Huệ2 Use your smartphone to scan this QR code and download this article TÓM TẮT Ngày nay, những công nghệ đột phá như nền tảng chuỗi khối có tiềm năng trong việc đóng góp giá trị gia tăng cho những ứng dụng cho đa dạng các ngành khác nhau. Công nghệ blockchain, được xem như là thế hệ thứ hai của Internet trong thời đại số, đã được ứng dụng rộng rãi trong thực tiễn cho nhiều ngành như tài chính, sức khỏe, du lịch, bán lẻ, sản xuất – chế tạo, giáo dục, lĩnh vực công, quản lý chuỗi cung ứng, sản phẩm nông nghiệp và nhiều ngành nghề khác. Trong đó, việc vận hành chuỗi cung ứng cho sản phẩm nông nghiệp dựa trên công nghệ chuỗi khối có tiềm năng phát triển và hữu ích cho ngành nông nghiệp. Trong bối cảnh khu vực, Việt Nam là quốc đa đạt nhiều lợi thế cạnh tranh trong sản xuất nông sản trên thế giới như hạt tiêu, hạt điều, cà phê, dừa, gạo, và cao su. Hơn nữa, trong khu vực các nước ASEAN, Việt Nam là một trong những quốc gia tiên phong trong việc áp dụng công nghệ chuỗi khối để truy xuất nguồn gốc nông sản. Tuy nhiên, việc thiết kế và thực thi ứng dụng công nghệ chuỗi khối trong sản xuất nông nghiệp trong bối cảnh của ngành nông nghiệp Việt Namgặp những cơ hội và thách thức, bên cạnh thếmạnh và điểm yếu của ngành. Bài báo này tập trung phân tích điểm mạnh, điểm yếu, cơ hội, và thách thức cho việc quản trị chuỗi cung ứng nông sản dựa trên nền tảng chuỗi khối. Đồng thời, ứng dụng công nghệ chuỗi khối có thể thúc đẩy phát triển nông nghiệp bền vững, hướng đếnMục tiêu Phát triển Bền vững của Liên hợp quốc trong thế kỷ 21. Chúng tôi sử dụng phương pháp tiếp cận diễn giải trong việc khảo cứu và tổng hợp các tài liệu nghiên cứu, và diễn dịch các kết quả nghiên cứu. Cuối cùng chúng tôi đề xuất những khuyến nghị và hàm ý chính sách cho giới hữu quan như các nhà làm chính sách, tổ chức thiết kế và phát triển công nghệ chuỗi khối, các người dùng là nông dân, trong việc thúc đẩy triển khai chuỗi nông sản trên nền tảng chuỗi khối trong bối cảnh ngành nông nghiệp Việt Nam. Từ khoá: Công nghệ chuỗi khối, quản lý chuỗi cung ứng, bền vững, nông nghiệp Việt Nam, phân tích SWOT Trích dẫn bài báo này: Vũ T T, Huệ T H H. Ứng dụng công nghệ blockchain cho chuỗi cung ứng nông sản theo hướng bền vững ở Việt Nam: phân tích SWOT. Sci. Tech. Dev. J. - Eco. Law Manag.; 5(1):1278-1289. 1289