Blockchain technology: The Bundestag provides financing in the millions

The Budget Committee of the Bundestag has given the green light to provide financial support for blockchain technology in various sectors. Measures include the use of modern technologies in agriculture, research projects on smart contracts in consumer protection and the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain in process automation and corporate autonomy. This appears from a press release issued today, November 17th.

€3.6 million for blockchain in the agricultural sector

In the field of agricultural technology, blockchain is primarily intended to help efficiently monitor nitrate content in soil. “The lack of real-time information is often the reason behind over-enrichment,” says Frank Schaeffler, a politician from the Free Democratic Party. As a member of the Bundestag, he campaigned for financial support. The Plan: The sensor network provides real-time mineral data via a dashboard to farmers and authorities. Artificial intelligence analyzes this data to predict soil development in the coming years.

To this end, the Budget Committee provided funding of €3.6 million for the development and testing of the agricultural technology system. The Alliance has set itself the goal of a sustainable and future agriculture that is managed economically and in harmony with environmental aspects. “With the Budget Committee’s decision, we take another important step,” Schaeffler said.

Blockchain aims to improve consumer protection and automate processes

In addition, a research project on the topic of smart contracts in consumer protection will be funded. Smart contracts can use blockchain technology to automatically initiate a certain action after receiving payment, according to the theory. This is already a common practice in the DeFi sector. A total of €900,000 will be made available for this project over the next three years, in particular to analyze and answer legal questions.

“Transparency and security against tampering with smart contracts aim to enhance consumer rights,” the statement said. However, smart contracts do not yet operate completely error-free: weaknesses in the programming often lead to hacker attacks.

The Bundestag has allocated an additional five million euros for production automation, logistics and supply chain management. Several research institutes have started an R&D project called “SKALA (Scalable AI and Blockchain Solutions for Automation and Autonomy in Value Networks). The Fraunhofer Institute for Material Flow and Logistics (IML) is coordinating the project.

“SKALA comes at the right time. The synergies between artificial intelligence and blockchain technology open the way for digital networks,” says Schaeffler, explaining this initiative. It is currently unknown what specific blockchains will be used.