Technologies Ensuring Food Safety

Food safety is an integral part of our consumption cycle as it helps avoid harm to humans

Right measures taken towards agro-food safety are the key to promoting better health. The right measures, when taken can further be instrumental in protecting the crowd from foodborne illnesses and promoting food security.

As per a study released by the United Nations, around 4 lakh people die every year because of contaminated food, and children under the age of 5 account for 40% of the foodborne disease burden. A report such as this puts the globe on a higher alert in terms of food security.

Just a few days back, Jitendra Singh had called for a collaboration between India, the UK over food security and zero hunger. He wanted the 2 countries to collaborate across various dimensions of science like agriculture, pharma, food, and so on. According to Mr. Singh, India's efforts to safeguard food security have been unprecedented as Prime Minister Narendra Modi has ensured that no individual would go hungry during the time of the Pandemic.

A growing population is an uncontrollable factor, however, measures to grow agri-products is something that can still be monitored and chosen carefully. Agricultural practices such as Hydroponics, Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence, and so on, play a pivotal role in aiding food security issues whilst also improving the crop's quality and cultivating food that is safe to consume.

A major reason behind the drop in yield quality in traditional farming was the presence of pests and simultaneously the inadequate usage of chemicals to treat them. Cultivating in soil has its own set of drawbacks, be it the contamination of the soil due to animal droppings or water runoffs.

Vertical Farming or Hydroponics require no soil to cultivate and this can eliminate such concerns and ensure maximum food safety of agro-products. This further points at the minimal to no usage of chemicals in order to grow a high-quality yield by the end of the harvest.

Along with pests being a pressing issue in the agriculture industry. Irregular agri-practices have also been a prime reason behind the tampering of crop productivity and food safety. When agri operations are carried out without any insights or proper data, it can have an adverse impact on the crop's quality.

Technology advancements such as robots, sensors, drones, and so on, help in agriculture operations by not just optimising the cost but also ensuring better crop health. These technologies are useful in providing vital information that can further ramp up crop productivity and agro-safety practices.

Tracking the quality of food across the entire supply chain becomes a very important step towards ensuring food security and food safety. Without a well-versed traceability system such as Blockchain, identifying a bad batch of agro-products can be difficult to discover which can further make it impossible for the enterprises to recall unsafe agriproducts, if any. Blockchains play an important role in making the agri value chain robust and helping eliminate any dangerous foodborne illnesses. With the help of QR codes and stickers, it can be fairly easy to identify defective batches or high-risk products.

Technologies such as Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Blockchains, Artificial Intelligence, and so on, play a pivotal role in empowering producers to enhance their productivity while also minimising its impact on the environment.

Today enterprises and agri-stakeholders strive hard to spread awareness about food security and safety and in order to cultivate safe and risk-free agriproducts, farmers and enterprises must carry out sustainable practices with the help of new-age digital tools and technologies.