Smart agriculture for food quality: facing climate change in the 21st century

Abstract

Climate change, with increasing temperatures and atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, constitutes a severe threat to the environment and all living organisms. In particular, numerous studies suggest severe consequences for the health of crop plants, affecting both the productivity and quality of raw material destined to the food industry. Of particular concern is the reduction of proteins and essential micronutrients as iron and zinc in crops. Fighting this alarming trends is the challenge of Climate-Smart Agriculture with the double goal of reducing environmental impacts (use of pesticides, nitrogen and phosphorus leaching, soil erosion, water depletion and contamination) and improving raw material and consequently food quality. Organic farming, biofertilizers and to a lesser extent nano-carriers, improve the antioxidant properties of fruits, but the data about proteins and micronutrients are rather contradictory. On the other hand, advanced devices and Precision Agriculture allow the cultivations to be more profitable, efficient, contributing more and more to reduce pest diseases and to increase the quality of agricultural products and food safety. Thus, nowadays adoption of technologies applied to sustainable farming systems is a challenging and dynamic issue for facing negative trends due to environmental impacts and climate changes.

Keywords:

• Environment
• food nutritional value
• food safety
• greenhouse gases
• sustainable agriculture

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Prof. Francesco Visioli, University of Padua (Italy) for the critical review of the manuscript and for useful suggestions.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Author contributions

CA, ML and GV designed the research. CA and ML independently did literature research and screening; CA, ML and GV wrote the manuscript and ML helped improve English writing. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Additional information

Funding

The work was funded by AGER Fondazioni in Rete per la Ricerca Agroalimentare grant n° 2017-2194.