Understanding the legacy systems that modern digitalization seeks to transform.
Before we explore digital tools, it is essential to understand how traditional agricultural and forest commodity supply chains operate. These systems have endured for decades — sometimes centuries — but they also reveal the gaps, delays, and vulnerabilities that digitalization aims to solve.
1. Seedling & Production Stage
- Nurseries and smallholder farms depend on manual logs or memory-based recordkeeping.
- Growth cycles, inputs, and inoculation or treatment events are rarely documented.
- Plant health issues may go unnoticed until losses occur.
Key Pain Points:
✔ Inconsistent records
✔ Unstandardized growing practices
✔ Difficulty proving legality or sustainability
2. Harvesting & Primary Handling
- Harvesting decisions rely heavily on farmer experience rather than data.
- Sorting and basic grading are done manually with no digital records.
- Aggregators often buy without traceability, mixing batches from multiple farms.
Key Pain Points:
✔ Quality variability
✔ Post-harvest losses
✔ No verifiable source-of-origin data
3. Middlemen / Traders / Consolidators
- Middlemen play a major role in linking farmers to processors or exporters.
- Transactions are cash-based and undocumented.
- They consolidate products from many farms, making traceability nearly impossible.
Key Pain Points:
✔ Price opacity
✔ Limited accountability
✔ High risk of mixing legal and illegal commodities
4. Processing & Value Addition
(Agarwood grading, cutting, chipping, distillation, extraction, fermentation, drying, milling, etc.)
- Processors often rely on manual batch logs and spreadsheets.
- Inputs and outputs are not consistently matched to farm origins.
- Quality control data is rarely standardized.
Key Pain Points:
✔ Weak batch documentation
✔ Difficulty proving compliance
✔ Hard to meet international buyer requirements
5. Transport & Logistics
- Paper-based waybills and delivery receipts dominate.
- Manual inspections lead to delays.
- Information does not follow the product in real time.
Key Pain Points:
✔ Lost paperwork
✔ Slow verification
✔ Inefficient routing and scheduling
6. Certification & Regulatory Approvals
(CITES permits, phytosanitary certificates, transport clearances, LGU endorsements)
- Multiple offices, multiple signatures, manual forms.
- Processing can take days to weeks.
- No unified system for verifying legality or compliance.
Key Pain Points:
✔ Long processing times
✔ Risk of document tampering
✔ Lack of inter-agency coordination
7. Exporters & International Buyers
- Export documentation is fragmented across agencies.
- Buyers rely on trust rather than verifiable digital proof.
- Shipment tracking is limited and often reactive.
Key Pain Points:
✔ Difficulty validating authenticity
✔ High audit and compliance burden
✔ Weak visibility across the supply chain
8. Retailers & End Consumers
- Consumers have no way to verify product origin, authenticity, or sustainability claims.
- Counterfeits enter the market easily due to lack of tracking data.
Key Pain Points:
✔ Low consumer trust
✔ Brand vulnerability
✔ Difficulty differentiating premium products
Summary: Why the Traditional Chain Must Evolve
The traditional supply chain is characterized by:
- Manual processes
- Fragmented data
- Low transparency
- Slow certification workflows
- Traceability gaps
- High risk of fraud or misrepresentation
Digitalization offers solutions that can transform each of these weak links into strengths — enabling transparency, efficiency, equity, and global market competitiveness.