1. Introduction

Food safety has become a major global public health concern, causing considerably decreased consumer confidence due to various outbreaks of food-borne illnesses, including epidemics [1].With the lack of transparency and traceability in food supply chain systems, consumers’ concerns regarding food provenance and quality are growing in many countries, resulting in the increased demand for food products whose origin is certified [3]. Consumers increasingly insist on a comprehensive and integrated food safety policy, such as the farm-to-table policy, which has consequences for both producers and control authorities.

Enforcement of an adequate and integrated traceability system, covering both plant and animal products, is essential for performing effective risk assessment along the production chain. A sound food safety policy requires regulatory action to manage risks and the implementation of an effective control system to monitor and enforce regulations. Each element is part of a chain; thus, changes in farming practices, feed and food production, and processing often require amendments to existing regulations, while feedback from the control systems helps to identify and manage both existing and emerging risks [5].

Supply chain management is increasingly leveraging online processes in their business operations. For instance, the online-to-offline (O2O) supply chain strategy uses an online trigger to prompt potential customers to visit the outlet in person to complete the purchase, which is gaining popularity in certain industries, such as print-on-demand. [6,7]. Recent research suggests the advantage of strong coordination between manufacturers and retailers in decentralized supply chain management to address the risk of demand fluctuation in short life-cycle products [8]. Moreover, the concept and practice of green supply chains are gaining momentum in the agri-food sector.

2. Traceability in the Agri-Food Industry

Traceability is widely recognized as the basis for any modern food safety control system integrating both animal health and food hygiene components. Traceability is the ability to recognize the origin of foods or agricultural products, especially when products are found to be defective [13]. A traceability system leads the organization through all the stages of the value chain, from the origin until the end. Traceability and transparency are necessary for building trust in the agri-food supply chain [14].

According to Opara [17], traceability in the agricultural supply chain can be divided into six major elements: (1) product traceability, which describes the location of a commodity at any stage of the supply chain to simplify the logistics, inventory management, and other required information for customers and stakeholders; (2) process traceability, which describes the types and order of activities that occur with the product during the operations, including the interaction between the product and other elements that affect value addition to the product; (3) genetic traceability, which describes the genetic information of the product, including the type of materials or ingredients for creating a raw material; (4) inputs traceability, which describes the types of inputs such as fertilizer, irrigation water, feed, and other relevant activities or inputs used during the production and processing stages; (5) disease and pest traceability, which describes any contamination that occurs resulting from agricultural raw materials; and (6) measurement traceability, which describes the single measurement results that follow the national and international standards. In addition, according to Shankar et al. [18], the traceability system for the agricultural supply chain can be classified into three stages: (1) tracing the source of contamination from downstream to upstream; (2) tracking the physical movement of the agri-product from upstream to downstream; and (3) maintaining the product history information associated with the movement of products along the supply chain.

An integrated food chain control system should be able to identify and document the following with accuracy: (a) all materials and ingredients used; (b) production processes; (c) personnel involved; and (d) final products. This identification and documentation has the following goals: (a) to increase confidence in product safety; (b) to control public health risks derived from product use/consumption; (c) to facilitate disease control procedures, including sampling; (d) to identify the source of possible contamination; and (e) to facilitate the product recall procedure. The globalization of trade complicates the identification of the origins of materials used for either feed or food preparation [22]. Furthermore, the lack of harmonization of labelling requirements, particularly at the international level, often precludes traceback of an ingredient or raw material to the source.

3. Adaptation of Technology and Policy in the ASEAN Agri-Food Industry

According to the ASEAN Ministers of Agriculture and Forestry (AMAF) Work Plan toward the ASEAN Economic Community 2025, modern technologies will be practiced to advance the productivity of crop, livestock, and fishery production in the region and improve the quality of products to support the agri-food stakeholders [25]. Digital agriculture, including use of drones to spray fertilizers and pesticides, robotics, and wireless sensors, provides innumerable opportunities for realizing the AMAF Work Plan. Additional technologies, such as data sensors, can provide farmers with information on the optimal quantity of production inputs (e.g., seeds, nutrients) and the environment (e.g., temperature, humidity) to boost yields [25]. Investment is needed to secure key resources of modern technology.

3.1. Radio Frequency Identification (RFID)

RFID (radio frequency identification) is a type of communication technology for non-contact automatic identification, which automatically identifies multiple high-speed moving objects simultaneously, even in resource-poor environments and without manual intervention. Moreover, it can tag, save, and manage information through a radio-frequency signal. Compared to the bar code, the RFID tag technology has considerable advantages, such as convenience, antipollution, mass-capacity information, and recyclability. With regard to logistics, RFID has been widely used in production-processing, warehouse management, logistics tracing, and product anti-fake. With the extensive applications of RFID, the level of supply chain management has been highly enhanced [27].

3.2. Near Field Communication (NFC)

3.3. Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN)

Wireless sensor networks (WSN) aim to increase efficiency and reliability by developing new algorithms, protocols, and techniques.The advantages of WSN include its capacity to dispense multiple network topologies, secured communication among nodes, and the ability for long reading ranges. Nonetheless, some disadvantages remain, such as the inapplicability for needs and identification purposes and the high energy consumption in continuous sensing [26].

3.4. Cloud Computing Technology (CCT)

Cloud computing technology (CCT) is the most recent technological concept in many industries, such as banking, retail, education, and logistics. The main benefits of CCT are a reduction in hardware and software cost, better visibility of information, and faster development with well managed computing resources by the provided software [35]. Moreover, CCT can be used as part of a tracking system along the agri-food supply chain. For example, previous researchers conducted research on a cloud-based beef supply chain in order to assess carbon footprint [36]. The literature discusses different stakeholders of the beef supply chain and corresponding sources of carbon emissions [36].

3.5. DNA Barcoding

This entry is adapted from the peer-reviewed paper 10.3390/su142013148