Doctoral Dissertation Research: Blockchain and the Frontiers of Provenance and Risk in the Cattle Ranching Industry

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This doctoral dissertation research project investigates contemporary means of recording and accounting for ownership and responsibility by exploring cattle ranchers’ use of technology in animal husbandry. The researcher will focus on U.S. ranches that have adopted blockchain, the record-keeping mechanism underlying cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. Agriculture is among the first sectors of the U.S. economy to implement blockchain in real-world cases unrelated to cryptocurrency. Historically, ranchers have proven ownership and controlled movement of cattle through a combination of branding and barbed wire, both of which had significant social impacts beyond cattle husbandry. Beef producers are now testing blockchain’s promise of making detailed transactional information publicly available, aiming to enable consumers to self-verify the provenance and quality of their food rather than placing trust in often opaque supply chains. This project, which trains a graduate student in methods of scientific data collection and analysis, explores the motivations and potential social ramifications of cutting-edge technology adoption. The project tests the hypothesis that the infrastructure of meat production is primarily organized around notions of risk. Some uncertainties inherent to food production, such as weather, are practically impossible to predict; others, such as predation loss or negligence liability, are to a greater extent predictable. Predictable losses can be quantified as risk and thus managed through insurance or other means of transfer. The investigator will perform observational research among cowhands, conduct interviews with lawmakers and technology promoters, and undertake archival research, inquiring into the context and motivation for the use of branding, barbed wire, and blockchain as provenance technologies that increase certainty of ownership. This inquiry will reveal the distribution of risk across the beef supply chain, including who bears the burdens of risk and who is able to leverage it to generate value. The research will contribute to a greater understanding of how risk is conceived of and commodified. The far-reaching impacts of such an understanding include the safety of the US meat supply, the general configuration of supply chains, and the relationship between agricultural innovation and notions of ownership and responsibility with respect to property.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.