Nanoparticles in Sustainable Agricultural Crop Production: Applications and Perspectives

Abstract

For the ever-increasing population of the world, an increasing demand for more and more food is required. To cope with this alarming situation, there is a dire need for sustainable agricultural production. In agriculture, management of optimum plant nutrients for sustainable crop production is the priority-based area of research. In this regard, much advancement in the area of plant nutrition has come forward and nano-nutrition is one the most interesting areas of research for sustainable agriculture production. Nanotechnology has revolutionized the world with tremendous advancements in many fields of science like engineering, biotechnology, analytical chemistry, and agriculture. Nano-nutrition is the application of nanotechnology for the provision of nano-sized nutrients for the crop production. Two sources of nanoparticles (NPs) have been used; biotic and abiotic. The abiotic form of nutrients or NPs is prepared from inorganic sources like salts but it is not safe because many of these are non-biodegradable. While the biotic ones are prepared from organic sources which are definitely the biodegradable and environment friendly. So, a few studies/attempts have been made in the field of nano-nutrition and a lot more are expected in the near future because this field of plant nutrition is sustainable and efficient one. Using nano-nutrition we can increase the efficiency of micro- as well as macronutrients of the plants. In this chapter, the focus has been made on the importance of nano-nutrition in the sustainable agricultural production and its future scenario so that it could be possible to apply this knowledge on a large scale without any concern regarding environment.