Nanotechnology
Role of Nanotechnology
in the Development of Agriculture
Globally many countries in the world like USA, Iran etc. have identified the potential
of Nanotechnology not only in the agro-food sector, but also for cleaning ground
water, use of herbicides and pesticides on controlled release method, anti-
bacterial products (Nano acid) cure cancer and tumour, production of
detergents, paints, ceramics, shoes, garments etc. India has a great
scope for the application of nanotechnology in the
development of agriculture.
In agriculture and food systems,
the fundamental life processes are
explored through research in mole-
cular and cellular biology. New tools
for molecular and cellular biology are
needed that are specifically designed
for separation, identification and
qualification of individual molecules.
This is possible with nanotechnology
and could permit rapid advances in
agriculture research, such as repro-
ductive science and technology,
conversion of agricultural and food
wastes to energy and other useful
byproducts through enzymatic nano-
bioprocessing, disease prevention
and treatment in plants and animals.
To excel in these and other areas of
agriculture are required novel tools
that allow us to work and explore
living cells and biomolecules at the
molecule scale. Nanotechnology
holds such a promise.
What is Nanotechnology ?
Nanotechnology is the manipu-
lation or self-assembly of individual
atoms. molecules, or molecular clus-
ters into structures to create materials
and devices with new or vastly diffe-
rent properties.
Nanotechnology can work from
the top down approach (which means
reducing the size of the smallest
structures to the nanoscale e.g.
photonics applications in nanoelec-
tronics and nanoengineering) or the
bottom up approach (which involves
manipulating individual atoms and
molecules into nanostructures and
more closely resembles chemistry or
biology).
Nanotechnology has the poten-
tial to revolutionize the scientific
world by allowing scientists to mani-
PD/August/2007/249
pulate matter at the atomic or mole-
cular scale using physics, enginee-
ring, chemistry and biology. There
are
Dimensions
100 pm
Plant,
} The first mention of some of the
Animal cell 10 pm
1 pm } Bacteria
} 100 nm
} Virus
Protein 10 nm
}
Simple
DNA turn Molecule
1 nm
DNA base
0.1 nm } Atoms
Fig. Logarithmic Length, A matter of
scale and the level of structure
two main themes of it viz. (1) Nano-
technology is a broad and interdis-
ciplinary area of research and
development activity that has been
growing at a rapid pace world-wide
in the past few years. It enables
researchers to understand the
relationship between macroscopic
properties and molecular structure in
biological materials of plants and
animals origin. (2) It is already
having a significant commercial
impact, which will certainly increase
in the future.
The definition of nanotechno-
logy is based on the prefix nano
which is from the Greek word
meaning dwarf. In more technical
terms, the word nano means
denoting factor of 10 9 (nano second)
or one billionth or something. For
When firmness is sufficient, rashness is unnecessary.
Dr. R. S. Sengar
comparison, a virus is roughly 100
nanometres (nm) in size. The word
nanotechnology is generally used
when referring to materials with the
size of 0.1 to 100 nanometres.
History of Nanotechnology
distinguishing concepts in nanotech-
nology (but predating use of that
name) was in Theres Plenty of
Room at the Bottom, a talk given by
physicist Richard Feynman at an
American Physical Society meeting at
Caltech on December 29, 1959.
Feynman described a process by
which the ability to manipulate indivi
dual atoms and molecules might be
developed, using one set of precise
tools to build and operate another
proportionally smaller set, and so on
down to the needed scale. In the
course of this, he noted, scaling issues
would arise from the changing
magnitude of various physical
phenomena; gravity would become
less important, surface tension and
Van der Waals attraction would
become more important etc. This
basic idea appears feasible, and
exponential assembly enhances it
with parallelism to produce a useful
quantity of end products.
Applications and Benefits
Nanotechnology has the poten-
tial to revolutionize the agricultural
and food industry with new tools for
the molecular treatment of diseases,
rapid disease detection, enhancing
the ability of plants to absorb
nutrients etc. Smart sensors and
smart delivery systems will help the
agricultural industry combat viruses
and other crop pathogens.