Developers of an encrypted digital currency pegged to urea prices are celebrating the first sale using the 'crypto-currency'. Urocoin is an 'alternative' international payment system, long term 1:1 backed to the value of a metric tonne of Urea fertiliser (the most important worldwide).

The 'currency' is a digital system, which the developers claim will end wide fluctuations in the price of fertiliser (wholesale prices can vary by 300 percent between different markets or regions).

Operating on a similar principle to the more famous Bitcoin, an open source, software-based currency first launched in 2009, only pegged to a commodity, Urocoin's developers hope their form of payment will help to stabilise and render more efficient the global fertiliser trade. Traders have also been supportive, as the system eliminates bank charges and delays to transactions, as well as offering some protection against fraud.

Earlier this month, the Uro Foundation, the group behind the new digital currency, celebrated the closure of the first deal made using the currency. 25,000 Urocoins changed hands for 25,000 tonnes of fertiliser. According to the two companies involved in the transaction this saved thousands of US dollars in fees, as the deal had been attempted in January using traditional methods and suspended due to compliance issues between the two parties' banks.

Hong Kong-based fertiliser brokers Green Earth Systems Limited, sold 25,000 tonnes of fertiliser worth an estimated $7m USD to Indian's Rivaa Exports Ltd on 10^th July.  

The Uro Foundation claimed in June that it had forged an agreement amongst several international Urea trading partners to back each unit of Uro with a metric tonne of Urea to ensure that it operates as a functional exchange for the fertiliser. Green Earth Systems publicly gave its backing to the currency at its AGM in Sydney that month.  

Outlining the ideas behind their currency, the Uro Foundation said, "If we were talking about the trade of designer handbags, this would not be such a big problem [but] we are talking about 50% of the world's food production being jeopardized by 300% price fluctuations. Real farmers - especially small to medium peasant class agricultural families who do not have access to insider information and deep connections in the current closed room trading regimes and tendering processes, are suffering daily and horrifically - having to lose crops and livelihoods over the inability to access affordable fertilizer."

The Uro Foundation has even said the payment method could help reduce some of the pressures contributing to food shortages around the globe; they argue that "The creation of [an] international, distributed, consistent, honest, fast and efficient Urea Exchange is what we believe to be a vital part of the solution to this [food] crisis."