Nano–Enabled Fertilizers for Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security

Nano-enhanced fertilizers (NEFs) may be one of the solutions to rising global food demand issues using an improvement of nutrient use efficiency, while also reducing adverse environmental effects and promoting better agriculture sustainability. The review evaluated 110 available literature related to the formulation, operation, and performance of NEFs in terms of key features such as enhanced solubility, controlled release mechanism, and the ability to provide nutrients in a more precise way, as well as how these have been integrated into current precision agriculture technology. The conventional fertilizer has shown very poor nutrient use efficiencies leading to decreased soil fertility and significant negative environmental impact. NEFs have the potential to improve the nutrient use efficiency of crops to 60-70% due to enhanced delivery and release properties. In combination with tools including GPS-guided equipment, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, and other precision agriculture equipment, NEFs allow for site specific nutrient application, thus reducing wasted inputs and increasing yields. Economic evaluations of NEFs indicate that they have the capability to decrease the frequency of application, resulting in long term cost savings for farmers, increased profit margins for farms; however, limitations exist in regards to high production costs, inconsistent regulations, unequal access to new technologies, and limited education/training of farmers, which may lead to further inequality between those who do and do not adopt this technology. Potential toxicity to soil organisms, bioaccumulation of engineered nanoparticles in food chains affecting both human, animals and the environment should also be concerned. To ensure that the responsible scale up of NEFs occurs, the review highlights the need for public-private partnerships, targeted government subsidies, and the utilization of biobased-nano materials within circular economies, which would position NEFs as a transformative tool for developing a more sustainable, productive, and resilient global food system.