Prospects for the future of nanotechnology in agriculture boggle the mind. The future of nano-what, did you say?

If you haven’t heard about nanotechnology yet, you’re not alone. This article is not an eye-glazing discussion of highly technical sciences. Instead it defines an exciting, evolving technology in everyday terms. It explains the potential for nanotechnology to contribute to agriculture and just about every other aspect of our lives, from health, nutrition and medicine to homeland security, energy and the environment.

What about nanotechnology in agriculture and the food industry?

You may have heard nanotechnology described as agriculture’s next industrial revolution, because of its potential to influence agriculture’s future. Experts have gone so far as to compare nanotechnology’s importance to the arrival of the internal combustion engine (by way of the tractor) during agriculture’s industrial era, or to the introduction of vaccines for livestock disease management and agrichemicals for pest management.

 Nanotechnology is an innovative, diverse toolbox that allows scientists and engineers to work with nanometers (a nanometer is one billionth of a meter in size), often atom by atom.

 The big deal with nanotechnology is that at the nanolevel, interactions between atoms have unusual effects and take on different properties than they would at larger scales. It is these unusual effects that scientists and engineers are harnessing to determine the endless potential of nanotechnology applications. For agriculture, that means incredible advances in countless areas, such as food safety, livestock and plant health, disease treatment delivery systems and pathogen detection.

• Nanotechnology: Part of our daily lives?

• Jobs! Jobs! Jobs!

• Nanotechnology already impacts our lives

• Role of consumers

• Entire Spring 2008 Financial Partner (F.P.) magazine