Two Hands published articles

Peat holds 30 to 40 times more carbon than farmland, hectare for hectare. Most of Scotland's is degraded — and the crofters best placed to fix it still can't own what they restore.

Who decides what your soil is worth? Right now, it isn't you. A committee overseas. A carbon exchange. A corporate sustainability officer who has never opened your gate. They price your land, and price it low. The farmers' unions have told members to keep their carbon in the ground — on that they are right, but "wait" is not a plan. The rules of this market were written by people farmers never elected. There is a far bigger opportunity here than carbon: the soil, the water, the biodiversity, the whole living farm — and farmers, their unions and co-operatives are the ones who can claim it.

The average farm generates data worth tens of thousands of pounds a year — and gives that data away for nothing. Whose data is it, and what changes when farmers finally own, control and monetise it?

No one is asking farmers or consumers whether they want to live in a world where the data critical to their livelihood and health is controlled by large institutions. Yet as food systems digitise at an accelerating pace, those decisions are being made right now.

Regenerative agriculture is now where organic was 30 years ago — full of promise, fragmented in practice, and one corporate capture away from losing its meaning. Leading farmers have just told us regenerative agriculture risks heading the same way — unless we build something different. Here's what they found, and what it means.

Pick up a carrot. It has a price and a weight. It has never had a reliable signal of what it will do to the health of the person eating it — or what producing it costs the soil, the water, the biodiversity around it. Biodynamic, regenerative, farmers' market — labels consumers trust and pay a premium for — carry no verified nutritional information at the point of purchase. That is an information failure playing out every day in every kitchen, hospital and school canteen. This article follows it from the field to the fork to the gut.

Three landmark farming reports. 57 recommendations. Hundreds of pages of serious, well-evidenced analysis. All three get the diagnosis right. All three point toward government as the primary lever for change. And all three stop short of naming the one structural cause that sits beneath every symptom they describe — an information failure running the full length of the food chain, costing the UK economy £248 billion annually, hiding in plain sight in an age when we have never had more data. This article names it.

Ask any farmer what their biggest daily struggle is. They won't say technology. They won't say data. They'll say profitability. That one answer explains more about $18 billion in AgriTech failures than most in the industry have been willing to say out loud.

Today's food systems' information monopoly that has entrenched supply chain power is ending. AI agents are collapsing the cost of freeing this data trapped by powerful food system players for thirty years. But when you free the data, what guarantees it's true? Freeing data you can't verify doesn't end the information monopoly in food systems. It automates it. This is the missing half of the argument.

The Scottish Parliament is creating global first-mover advantage for real-economy blockchain innovation. While other jurisdictions impose prescriptive regulations, Scotland uniquely takes a property law approach. The Bill enables blockchain tech to help solve $12.5 trillion (Scotland £12 billion) food system challenges — eliminating greenwashing, delivering additional income for farmers, and unlocking financial services investment in farm nature data.

Legal certainty matters. Two Hands' Committee testimony focused on extending digital asset recognition beyond the financial sector to biological and nature assets within agriculture and food systems. The Committee's acknowledgment this is "a rapidly evolving area" requiring "further legislation" aligns with our evidence on real-economy applications.

The Tech Trinity is arriving faster than agriculture realises. While farmers debate reduced subsidies and politicians struggle to contain spending, Digital Trust technology, AI and Web3 are converging to deliver the most profound agricultural transformation since mechanisation.

Groundswell 2025 brought together thousands of farmers seeking answers. But when Gabe Brown took the stage as one of the fathers of regenerative agriculture, something shifted. His vision went beyond farming to regenerating people and planet.

Tuesday's International Conference on Digital Trust, AI and the Future at Edinburgh Napier University exposed a strategic blind spot. We're pouring resources into financial services Digital Trust adoption while the industry that could prove its transformative power to everyone else waits in the wings.

Walking out of 10 Downing Street, I reflected deeply on Two Hands' quest to use technology to empower farmers, fishermen, nature and consumers.

When Kraken announced they're creating digital versions of US stocks that can trade 24/7 anywhere in the world, for agriculture, food and drink, this changes everything. Not because farmers need to trade stocks — because the infrastructure that just made this possible will transform how farmers and family-owned supply chain operators connect to their markets.

Invitation to 10 Downing Street.

The livestock industry isn't facing a simple marketing problem — it's confronting fundamental questions about its legitimacy with Gen Z women.

The UK faces its own transitions. Once reliant on Commonwealth trade for food security, then on EU membership, Brexit has created new uncertainties. Meanwhile, farming subsidies designed to manage the pace of agricultural transition are rapidly diminishing as government budgets prioritise defence spending.

A recent conversation between NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang and Mistral AI CEO Arthur Mensch revealed a vision for artificial intelligence that perfectly aligns with what we at Two Hands have been advocating: technology that serves everyone, not just the powerful few.

The best strawberry I've ever eaten was from Scotland's Fife in June. The season lasts just the summer months. However, one can buy "strawberries" in the middle of winter, often flown in from Central America. The nutritional content and taste of the freshly picked Fife strawberry is so vastly different from those flown in from thousands of miles away that they should hardly bear the same name.

What if a market-led technological transformation could deliver both environmental progress and farming prosperity without requiring taxpayer funds?

The third article in our series exploring how Digital Trust technology can revolutionise our food systems. After examining the challenges of complexity, the future of farming and fishing, and how restaurants and institutions can drive change, we now focus on the critical "middle" of the supply chain.

During my eight years at Procter & Gamble in Cincinnati, a million-dollar research project revealed a profound truth: lasting success requires remaining compelling to young families, decade after decade. This insight has striking parallels to agriculture's current challenges, where the average age of farmers and fishers exceeds 60 globally.

Food systems encompass everything from soil bacteria to food on supermarket shelves to human nutrition. At the same time, there are innocents to protect: family-owned farms, fishermen, supply chain participants, restaurants and those with inadequate nutrition.

Many in the food industry find blockchain discussions daunting. This article breaks it down and explains why it matters for our food systems.

As our conversation meandered, we found each other in pretty violent agreement of what's needed to confront the challenges facing farmers and food systems.

Arthur's world is one where pride in his work is tied with the land, the livestock, and the community around him. Crofting, he explained, is not just farming. It's living history — a link to the Returned Heroes Act, which gave returning World War I soldiers a piece of land and a livelihood in the Highlands and Islands.

In September 2019, Forbes Magazine featured Two Hands in a three-page article, as we were one of the few commercialised blockchain applications in food supply chains outside of the finance industry globally. This recognition was not just about our technology but the impact our reimagined supply chain could have on the industry.

The paramount importance of farmers making a profit cannot be overlooked. Sustaining those who sustain us requires a considered approach.

In 2024, we're witnessing record levels of food poisoning and the numbers are staggering. The UK's Food Standards Agency reported 2.4 million cases and 16,400 hospitalisations, while in the USA 48 million Americans fall victim to foodborne illnesses annually, resulting in 128,000 hospitalisations and 5,000 deaths.

Amidst recent events casting shadows over our agricultural landscape, it's imperative to recognise the profound challenges faced by farmers globally. The closure of independent abattoirs, the surge in farmer protests, and reports on the vulnerability of Scottish North Highland crofters all underscore a critical truth — our farmers are bearing the brunt of an industrialised food production treating them as mere commodities.