2023 | Westpac NZ Government Innovation Funded Project
How can information collected for compliance become a valuable digital asset?
Farmers and growers provide substantial amounts of information to meet regulatory requirements, industry assurance programmes and buyer specifications.
Much of this information is collected repeatedly, even when it has already been verified by another organisation.
The HoReCo project, supported by the Westpac NZ Government Innovation Fund, investigated how compliance information could be captured once and reused securely across the agricultural sector.
Existing systems frequently required farmers to supply the same information to multiple organisations.
Information was held in separate databases, often with limited ability to exchange or reuse it.
Farmers had little practical control over how verified information could be shared between service providers, regulators and buyers.
The project explored a decentralised data-sharing network using digital identity, verifiable credentials and digital wallets.
Under this approach, trusted organisations could issue credentials containing verified information.
Farmers could then authorise the sharing of those credentials, or selected information within them, with other organisations.
The research considered applications in environmental compliance, supply-chain assurance, agricultural finance and international market access.
The project reinforced three principles:
It also identified the importance of using internationally recognised standards, open-source technologies and established digital identity services.
The research demonstrated that compliance information could become a reusable source of trusted evidence.
Rather than remaining isolated within individual organisations, verified information could support multiple services and commercial activities.
However, making this possible across the agricultural sector required consistent interpretation of the information being exchanged.
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