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Rice Exchange, the world’s first digital marketplace for rice buyers and sellers as well as third parties, said today it has concluded the first three international rice trades on its newly-launched blockchain-enabled platform. In a statement sent to Financial Nigeria, the Singapore-based company said the value of each of the trades were between $250,000 and $2 million.

The first three trades, according to the statement were between Wisdom Grain Pte Ltd, a Singapore-based company, and a buyer in Europe; KLA Group, an Indian consortium, and a buyer in Burkina Faso; and Meskay and Femtee, a leading exporter of rice and other agri-products in Pakistan, and a buyer in another West African country.

Rice Exchange went live at the end of September 2020. The platform was built by Fujitsu using Hyperledger Fabric technology, a modular blockchain framework. It is a commodity trading platform focused on maritime rice trade. The customers have direct platform access to Maersk and Ducat Maritime for shipping, Cotecna and ISC for inspection services and Siaci Saint Honore for insurance.

“Rice Exchange is revolutionising the global rice market,” said Stephen Edkins, CEO and Founder of Rice Exchange. “These first trades show that the global rice trade is looking for new ways of doing business that are modern, digital, and trustworthy.”

The company said multiple buyers and sellers of rice from over 60 countries have registered on its platform and are trading. By the end of 2020, up to 20 per cent of the $20 billion-a-year international rice market will be active on the platform, according to Rice Exchange.

“We onboarded as soon as the Rice Exchange platform was live and within a few days we concluded our first deal with a new buyer with whom we connected via the platform,” Lakshya Agarwal, CEO of KLA Group, said. “The contract was created within seconds of concluding the deal and our trusted inspection company, Cotecna, received an automated notification. The Rice Exchange platform is well-designed and saves time and money when executing a rice trade and we expect to conclude more deals in coming days.”

Rice is the staple food for over four billion people around the world. About one billion people depend on rice for their livelihoods. Rice Exchange said during the lockdowns imposed by countries to curb the spread of the coronavirus disease, global trade was disrupted, including rice trade. The digital marketplace for rice provides a solution to such trade disruptions by allowing buyers and sellers to meet, negotiate, discuss terms.

“I have been in the global rice market for 35 years and it is extremely gratifying to see these first trades, as well as to see all the other customers who have signed up to the platform,” said Frank Gouverne, COO and Founder of Rice Exchange. “This is just the beginning of the digital transformation of the world’s most important food.”

According to information on its website, Rice Exchange is a member of the Sustainable Rice Platform (SRP) and works with it to raise the profile of sustainably produced rice. The SRP was convened in 2011 by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the International Rice Research Institute, together with partners from public and private sectors and civil society groups to create a standard for sustainably-produced rice.

The Rice Exchange says its platform allows buyers to search for rice producers that have been awarded verifiable sustainable certifications giving buyers the certainty that they are purchasing sustainably produced rice.