## 3 Results and Discussion
### Changes in Experts' Perceptions about Blockchain from 2020 to 2022  
In general, the experts believe that most benefits have become more important over almost three years (Figure 2A). Only the benefit of more security throughout the production chain has maintained its importance between 2020 and 2022, and this is the benefit with the lowest importance score. The benefits with the highest importance scores in 2020 were reduced transaction costs and improved trust, transparency, and data immutability. Reduced transaction costs remained the benefit with the highest importance score in 2022, accompanied by enhanced governance and information flow. However, the main change in perspective concerns the perception that blockchain technology enables better governance and information flow along supply chains, whose perceived importance score increased by +15.4% (3.9 to 4.5). The second and third largest relative changes in perceived importance relate to achieving greater profitability in activities (+11.1%) and the possibility of drawing up smart digital contracts between actors in supply chains (+10.2%). All disadvantages gained importance in the period. Blockchain implementation and maintenance costs were pointed out as the main disadvantages of the technology. The elimination of intermediaries as a negative result of adopting the technology had the highest percentage growth, 18.5 percent (score from 2.7 to 3.2). The experts listed more and attributed more importance to the benefits than the disadvantages in both periods. During the interview, the experts also pointed out that blockchain technology will reach farmers through public, private, or cooperative initiatives. The interviewees also pointed out that farmers may seek to collaborate to drive the modernization of activities, showing optimism about the adoption of blockchain in agribusiness. The benefits (Figure 2A) suggest more secure and transparent relationships among supply chain members, including final consumers. Experts believe that direct connections between producers and consumers can be established, reversing the current commercial logic in which intermediary actors have great power of governance in supply chains. In  
Figure 2: Changes in perceptions of the benefits (**A**) and disadvantages (**B**) of applying blockchain technology in agribusiness. Source: prepared by the authors based on survey data. other words, aspects of supply and demand will become more transparent, and market speculation movements may be accessible to all actors in the supply chain, making markets fairer and less speculative. Besides benefits and disadvantages, there are challenges and opportunities for adopting blockchain in agribusiness. Therefore, there are bottlenecks to be overcome and incentives to be explored in the technology development and adoption process. According to the experts' perception, all opportunities have become more critical in the three years (Figure 3B). The possibility of integrating blockchain with new emerging technologies was highlighted as the foremost opportunity. Traceability, certification, and supply chain digitization are among the top opportunities for technology adoption. On the other hand, the opportunity with the most significant variation in perception was a competitive advantage, with an increase of +17% (score from 3.0 to 3.5). In the same direction, information symmetry and product differentiation were the second and third opportunities with the most significant variation in perceived importance. As the transactions carried out in a supply chain were placed on a blockchain, the information would be symmetric among actors since they could access it in real time. Therefore, a blockchain can be seen as an opportunity to record data with better reliability. In this sense, the competitive advantage is provided by technology's possibility of total and rigorous control of all chain stages.