Topic Review
Agricultural Sustainability under Climatic Extremes
The challenging alterations in climate in the last decades have had direct and indirect influences on biotic and abiotic stresses that have led to devastating implications on agricultural crop production and food security. Extreme environmental conditions, such as abiotic stresses, offer great opportunities to study the influence of different microorganisms in plant development and agricultural productivity.
  • 258
  • 09 May 2023
Topic Review
Agriculture 5.0 and Remote Sensing
Constant industrial innovation has made it possible that 2021 has been officially marked by the European Commission as the beginning of the era of “Industry 5.0”. In this 5th industrial revolution, RS has the potential of being one of the most important technologies for today’s agriculture. RS sprouted in the 19th century (specifically in 1858) through the use of air balloons for aerial observations. At present, it occupies a central position in precision agriculture (PA) and soil studies. It is also important to mention some of the interchangeable terms most commonly used include “precision farming”, “precision approach”, “remote sensing”, “digital farming”, “information intensive agriculture”, “smart agriculture”, “variable rate technology (VRT)”, “global navigation satellite system (GNSS) agriculture”, “farming by inch”, “site specific crop management”, “digital agriculture”, “agriculture 5.0”, etc. RS is a vast term that covers various technological systems, such as satellites, RPAs, GNSS, geographic information systems (GIS), big data analysis, the Internet of Things (IoT), the Internet of Everything (IoE), cloud computing, wireless sensors technologies (WST), decision support systems (DSS), and autonomous robots.
  • 2.5K
  • 14 Sep 2021
Topic Review
Agriculture and Pollinator Biodiversity
Pollinator biodiversity is greatly affected by industrialized agriculture practices. Agroecological alternatives for food production must be implemented. 
  • 1.1K
  • 22 Jul 2021
Topic Review
Agriculture in Marginal Lands
The term ‘marginal’ was originally used under the umbrella of economic theorizing to describe an area under given conditions where cost-effective production is not remunerated. Since then, different definitions describing the concept of marginality and marginal environments have emerged, highlighting the complex nature of marginality and how various unfavorable conditions disadvantage individuals and communities living in these areas. In the context of the agricultural economy, the term “margins of cultivation” is used to describe economically marginal agricultural lands where revenue from optimal production just equals (or is lower than, in some instances) the costs of production, leading to zero (negative) profit or economic loss. To capture this specific economic context, FAO and UNEP have classified land supporting a yield of only up to 40 percent of its productivity potential as marginal. Marginal lands are also identified as areas where “cost-effective production is not possible under given conditions, cultivation techniques, agriculture policies, and macro-economic and legal settings”. In this context, economically marginal land can be thought of as land that would not be cultivated at current output and input prices without the availability of government support programs. Marginal lands are mostly abandoned, as they are disadvantaged due to factors such as changing commodity markets, international competition, or the demographics of land owners and farm operators.
  • 1.9K
  • 07 Sep 2021
Topic Review
Agrivoltaic Systems Design
An agrivoltaic system is a complex system, being, at least, a spatial, an energy and an agronomic system. Its design and assessment must adhere to requirements set depending on the project’s needs in order to meet desired performance quality objectives. Different dimensions of performance need to be taken into account.
  • 1.5K
  • 18 Nov 2021
Topic Review
Agro-Food Waste as Ingredient in Functional Beverages
Waste generated from the agro-food industry represents a concerning environmental, social and economic issue. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations defines food waste as all food that decreases in quantity or quality to the extent that it is thrown out by food service providers and consumers. The optimization of agro-food waste as an ingredient will help in the development and innovation of food products to generate functional food and beverages to prevent and treat several diseases in consumers.
  • 518
  • 18 Apr 2023
Topic Review
Agro-Industrial Food Waste for Production of Industrial Enzymes
The grave environmental, social, and economic concerns over the unprecedented exploitation of non-renewable energy resources have drawn the attention of policy makers and research organizations towards the sustainable use of agro-industrial food and crop wastes. Enzymes are versatile biocatalysts with immense potential to transform the food industry and lignocellulosic biorefineries. Microbial enzymes offer cleaner and greener solutions to produce fine chemicals and compounds. The production of industrially important enzymes from abundantly present agro-industrial food waste offers economic solutions for the commercial production of value-added chemicals. The recent developments in biocatalytic systems are designed to either increase the catalytic capability of the commercial enzymes or create new enzymes with distinctive properties. The limitations of low catalytic efficiency and enzyme denaturation in ambient conditions can be mitigated by employing diverse and inexpensive immobilization carriers, such as agro-food based materials, biopolymers, and nanomaterials. Moreover, revolutionary protein engineering tools help in designing and constructing tailored enzymes with improved substrate specificity, catalytic activity, stability, and reaction product inhibition. This review discusses the recent developments in the production of essential industrial enzymes from agro-industrial food trash and the application of low-cost immobilization and enzyme engineering approaches for sustainable development.
  • 1.1K
  • 21 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Agro-Industrial Waste Composting Process Enhancement via Microbial Inoculation
Composting is an important technology used to treat and convert organic waste into value-added products. Recently, several studies have been done to investigate the effects of microbial supplementation on the composting of agro-industrial waste. According to these studies, microbial inoculation is considered to be one of the suitable methods for enhancing the biotransformation of organic materials during the composting process.
  • 686
  • 19 Jan 2022
Topic Review
Agro-Waste Management
It is urgent that we increase global food production to support population growth. Food production requires significant resources, amongst them water and energy. Therefore, any losses of food or other agricultural products also means a waste of water and energy resources. A significant amount of these losses occurs during the postharvest stage, primarily during processing and storage. This is considered avoidable food waste. The water-energy-waste nexus (WEW), and its relationship to food production, needs to be investigated from a circular bioeconomy lens. Furthermore, alternative uses of the wastes should be investigated. 
  • 1.1K
  • 06 Dec 2022
Topic Review
Agrobacterium fabrum atu0526-Encoding Protein
Soil-born plant pathogens, especially Agrobacterium, generally navigate their way to hosts through recognition of the root exudates by chemoreceptors. However, there is still a lack of appropriate identification of chemoreceptors and their ligands in Agrobacterium. Here, Atu0526, a sCache-type chemoreceptor from Agrobacterium fabrum C58, was confirmed as the receptor of a broad antibacterial agent, formic acid. The binding of formic acid to Atu0526 was screened using a thermo shift assay and verified using isothermal titration calorimetry. Inconsistent with the previously reported antimicrobial properties, formic acid was confirmed to be a chemoattractant to A. fabrum and could promote its growth. The chemotaxis of A. fabrum C58 toward formic acid was completely lost with the knock-out of atu0526, and regained with the complementation of the gene, indicating that Atu0526 is the only chemoreceptor for formic acid in A. fabrum C58.
  • 335
  • 19 Apr 2022
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