Emerging Innovations in Agriculture and Food Industry: Interaction among Metabolic engineering, genetics, genomics and non-thermal plasma

Increasing productivity and quality in agriculture and food industry are a very difficult task. The research shows as emerging product and process innovations may offer farmers higher yields, improved quality and better protection against environmental stresses (e.g. water limitation) and pests (e.g. Goss's Wilt, Gray leaf spot, Gemini viruses, etc.). Emerging innovative products could also help farmers to produce more while reducing inputs such as new generation drought tolerance trait that minimizes the impact of moisture stress in water-limited environments and potentially provide irrigation cost savings. In addition, the research also analyzes non thermal plasma technologies for food industry that use energetic, reactive gases to inactivate contaminating microbes on meats, poultry, fruits, and vegetables directly throughout the production line. Key limitations are the relatively early state of technology development, the variety and complexity of the necessary equipment, learning process, and the largely unexplored impacts on nutritional qualities of foods and side effects for public welfare. Nevertheless, these emerging product and process innovations show promise and are the subject of active research to enhance efficacy associated to sustainability by regulations of agricultural sector.