Agrotoken Expands Visa Partnership With Agriculture Sector Payment Card

Agrotoken, a global tokenization platform focused on agrocommodities, has teamed up with Pomelo and Algorand as strategic allies for the implementation and development of a card designed for the agricultural sector, according to a Monday (July 11) press release.

Last month, Agrotoken announced a partnership with Visa to create a payment method allowing agricultural producers to use their grains as a form of payment through a card. Agrotoken is incorporating Pomelo as the infrastructure to issue, distribute and process payments made with the card, which, according to the release, will soon be supported in any store that accepts Visa.

Meanwhile, the Algorand blockchain will be used to make operations transparent, fast and secure. The blockchain offers high scalability and low energy consumption because of its focus on sustainability to minimize its environmental impact, the company said.

See also: Grain-Backed Crypto Tokens Open New Possibilities for Farm Loans, Purchases

“Integrating Pomelo and Algorand into this existing partnership with Visa shows the versatility of our cryptoassets,” said Eduardo Novillo Astrada, Agrotoken CEO and co-founder. “Agrotoken is here to change the agricultural sector, not only in Argentina, but in the whole region, and this is possible thanks to various companies and platforms that supported us and our expansion into new horizons.”

Each token represents one ton of grain that the producer delivered for storage, and every ton is validated through a Proof of Grain Reserves (PoGR), a decentralized and auditable system. Agrotoken uses a multichain security infrastructure powered by Ethereum, Polygon and Algorand, according to the release.

Producers can use their digital assets to consult the grain price indexes in real time, request loans collateralized by grains and pay daily expenses with a card.

“The use of agrocommodities as a payment method is a very disruptive development and a clear example of digitalization and transformation in an industry as traditional and important as agriculture,” said Gastón Irigoyen, Pomelo CEO and co-founder.

Recently, India B2B AgriTech fruit marketplace Vegrow raised $25 million in a Series B funding round that it plans to use to expand its geographic presence, increase hiring efforts and improve its tech stack and growth.

Read more: AgriTech Market Vegrow Raises $25M for Expansion

The company processes more than 200 tons of fruit per day, with the company growing 15 times its previous size in the last year.