Ripple, the company behind the XRP Ledger and XRP token, has launched a pilot program whereby farmers in Colombia are able to loan capital and pay after profit. This is called the Ripple Impact Pilot. This is a FNPL (farm now pay later) system where the XRPL is leveraged to provide both the funding, and tracking of their agricultural produce. It also connects the farmers directly to the produce buyers, cutting out a lot of unnecessary middlemen and bureaucracy that would otherwise lower their profits.

The pilot is running with 300 farmers of Panela - an unrefined cane sugar. These produce is effectively tokenised on the XRPL thus providing immutable tracking. This allows buyers to ensure sustainable and fair trade. It also lowers "food fraud", which is a major problem in so-called "3rd World Countries".

Based on the result of the pilot, Ripple plans to expand the program to other farmers, possibly in other countries, and bring the benefits of blockchain to agriculture. Supply chain management has always been one of the purported use cases of the XRPL. It would be interesting to see how this goes. I for one will be keeping an eye on this one.

Peace & Love,

Adé