Nanotechnology + agriculture

 In today's research, I came across with nanotechnology and agriculture. It is true that there is an increasing demand for food and adequate nutrition, with ever growing population (currently estimated 6.4 billion and the number will grow to 8.9 by the year 2050) and destroyed biodiversity. Agriculture is very essential to our lives, and the fact that nano biotechnology is helping us to move forward in improving agriculture is amazing. We expect nanotechnology to offer solutions in farming using nanosensors, pest nanocides, decentralized water purification, high yield crops and so on.

Nanotechnology applications in the agriculture and food sector (Image ©: Nanowerk) Image[1]

It was also interesting to know that we can use nanobarcodes to monitor the quality of agricultural produce. In Cornell University, scientists used the concept of grocery barcodes for efficient and inexpensive decoding and detection of diseases. They use microscopic probes (nanobarcodes) that could tag multiple pathogens in a farm which can easily be detected using fluorescent-based equipment.

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With all the issues of safety on health, biodiversity and environment along with fair regulations being raised on nanotechnology, I still have high hopes in nanotechnology and  the effects it will bring into out future agriculture. It might help us with better quality foods and hunger around the worlds.

 

 

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Final Project Ideation:

I would like to make a public poster for fundraising and also creating awareness, to help the researchers in developing more advanced nanotechnology in agriculture.

 

 

 

Work Cited:

 

 A Nanotech Revolution in Agriculture and the Food Industry. 2006. P. Jones. Information Systems for Biotechnology. http://www.isb.vt.edu/articles/jun0605.htm. 

 

Lega. International Journal of Bifurcation and Chaos 10 (1999): 2791. Web.

 

 Multiplexed Detection of Pathogen DNA with DNA-based Fluorescence Nanobarcodes. 2005. Y. Li, Y.T. Hong Cu, D. Luo. Nature Biotechnology. DOI: 10.1038/nbt1106.

 

Image[1]

http://www.gettyimages.com/Nanowerk.com

 

Image[2]

https://www.bell-labs.com/about/stories-changed-world/eric-betzig-awarded-2014-nobel-prize-chemistry-development-super-resolved-fluorescence-microscopy/

 

Image[3]

http://www.gettyimages.com/