Emerging Nanoformulated Approaches for Sustainable Agriculture: Current Understanding and Future Directions

Fuente: Food Bioactives
Since the green revolution agricultural sector knew a quantum leap in terms of production and crop yields, through the unlimited use of chemicals. However, the huge outcome of this revolution came with a very expensive cost, manifested in the hazardous effect on the ecosystem, human health, soil fertility and rhizospheric microbiome dynamics. Given the heightened global awareness and consumer sensitivity regarding this matter, the research for novel inventive technology to address this problem becomes an urgency. Among the new introduced technologies in the field of sustainable agriculture, Nanoformulated approaches stands out as a burgeoning technology that revolutionized the agricultural system; its principle relies on the encapsulation of pesticides or fertilizers in addition to biocontrol agents and biofertilizers with inorganic (Cu, Zn, Ni, Fe, Ti, Ag, etc.) or sometimes organic, such as chitosan, starch, cellulose, etc. nanoparticles that range from 1 to 100 nm in size. The advantage of these particles is their large surface area and ability to cross cell’s biological barriers, which makes them a great delivery system that carry nutrients and biocontrol agents in a well targeted manner, thus enhancing plant growth and productivity while minimizing the fertilizers and pesticides input. and since the farming community always search to have the maximum productivity with the lowest input, nanoformulation would be of great potential to substitute conventional approaches. From this perspective, the main objective in this work is to explore the different uses of nanoformulated approaches in sustainable agriculture, mainly in the control of phytopathogens, plant growth promotion, stress mitigation, and bioremediation. Furthermore, the challenges and bottlenecks of their use and future directions will be discussed.