Significant roles of smart sensors in the modern agriculture and food industry

Maintenance of quality, safety, and authenticity of food items, as well as the sustainability of the processes, through the agrofood chain is crucial for consumers, manufacturers, and legislators. However, these features are routinely measured using various destructive, labor-intensive, and time-consuming techniques such as traditional methods including titration, microbial plating, and instrumental analytical methods including spectroscopic, chromatographic, and electrophoretic methods. However, new methods are constantly being developed and existing methods are being updated to fight against the increasing and diversifying stresses, such as climate change, increase in the population, scarcity of resources, pollutants, pesticides/antibiotic residues, and fraud, on agricultural and food products. In the era of Industry 4.0, the use of smart sensors in food and agriculture has become increasingly prevalent to provide fast, reliable, and versatile solutions for these threats.

Smart sensors, which can gather and analyze data in real time, have the potential to alter the way food and agricultural products are produced, processed, and delivered. This chapter introduces smart sensor technology as it relates to food and agriculture, covering the types of sensors that are typically used, how they are deployed, and their influence on various areas of the food and agricultural industries. It also investigates the obstacles and possibilities that result from the use of smart sensors in this setting, highlighting some of the main areas where more research and development are required to fully realize the potential of this rapidly evolving field.