Chapter 8 - Metabolomics and sustainable agriculture: concepts, applications, and perspectives

Abstract

Conceptual sustainable agriculture depends greatly on natural resources preservation, environment quality, and management and maintenance of ecosystems and soils. Because agricultural production is the unique source of food for the increasing population, sustainability became one of the major contemporary concerns for humans. With the incommensurate development of the biological sciences, the outcomes of omics technologies including metabolomics are further translated to agricultural research and productive technologies. The goals translation will help the humanity to examine the availability of the natural resources, their sustainability, and their efficient management. Among the numerous omics technologies, metabolomics is a promising strategy for understanding the molecular genetic basis of stress response, resistance, and resilience of plants and agroecosystems. By understanding the mechanisms, regulating the expression of stress-related genes is a fundamental issue in plant biology and will be necessary for the genetic improvement of crops mainly plant foods. This chapter is aiming in describing the numerous applications of metabolomics to agriculture, and how they can contribute to its sustainability and resilience particularly in the changing climate.