Edward Elgar Publishing Blockchain Solutions for Rural Development

This book explores how blockchain technology can transform rural areas by providing innovative solutions to issues such as food insecurity, poverty, climate change and digital inequality. Adopting a practical and conceptual approach, Diosey Ramon Lugo-Morin introduces ‘transforresilience’, a concept that integrates digital transformation with community resilience. Lugo-Morin presents concrete use cases, including food traceability, participatory governance, digital identity and decentralised markets, to highlight the potential of blockchain technology to empower rural and indigenous communities. He outlines key ethical and governance challenges of implementing disruptive technologies in these vulnerable contexts, providing actionable policy proposals aimed at bridging the rural digital divide. Ultimately, Lugo-Morin concludes that success hinges not only on the technology itself, but also on its ethical, inclusive and locally adapted implementation. Blockchain Solutions for Rural Development is an essential read for scholars and students of human geography, sociology and economics, particularly those in the fields of sustainable development, agricultural economics, sociology of development and disruptive technology. It is also beneficial to rural development policy experts, climate change specialists and digital innovation researchers interested in the practical applications of blockchain technology.