Plasma Agriculture

Abstract

The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs projects that the global population will rise from some 7.7 billion in 2019 to 9.7 billion in 2050 (Gerland et al., 2014). With the world’s rapid population growth, food demand is on the verge of increasing significantly. To meet this demand, global agriculture and the food industry will face more intense pressure than ever before. A growing concern in the agricultural sector is the threats posed by the use of pesticides, fumigants, and agrochemicals, which are harmful to the environment and health of most living creatures (Yadav and Devi, 2017). Furthermore, many targeted pests develop resistance to fumigants and pesticides, which leads to increases in their use by farmers in both developing and developed countries. Similarly, a number of reports have highlighted the problem of Fusarium fungus and related mycotoxins, which are major grain and fruit contaminants (Alshannaq and Yu, 2017; Richard, 2007). Thus, scientists must focus on technologies for controlling pest populations in fields as well as during post-harvest storage. At the same time, newly developed technologies should not leave any residual chemistry on food products and be able to modify the mode of action when necessary without incurring significant economic pressure. In short, efficient technologies are becoming increasingly necessary to reduce/arrest fungal growth, mycotoxin contamination, and pesticide residue in crops or harvested foods while reducing post-harvest losses, germination problems, and safety issues (Jermann et al., 2015; Knorr et al., 2011; Li and Farid, 2016; Misra et al., 2017). Moreover, it is important to develop sustainable food manufacturing and processing technologies that are environmentally friendly and consume fewer resources, including water and energy. Recently, CAP processing methods have been seen as having high potential because they work at low temperatures with short processing times without causing damage to crop, food, seeds, human beings, and the environment (Bourke et al., 2018; Cullen et al., 2018; Ito et al., 2018; Misra et al., 2016b; Moutiq et al., 2020; Puac et al., 2018). Plasma technologies’ contribution in agriculture includes, but is not limited to, decontaminating seeds or crops intended for sowing or storing, disinfecting processing surfaces or tools, enhancing germination or growth, producing nitrogen-based fertilizers, remediation of soil, and reducing the invasion of pathogens (Charoux et al., 2020; Filimonova and Amirov, 2001; Mandal et al., 2018; Miao et al., 2020; Pina-Perez et al., 2020; Wang et al., 2020b).