According to a United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) report in June 2021, every year farmers across the world lose up to over 40% of crops due to insects and diseases, resulting in an estimated loss of $290 billion to the global economy. In a bid to find modern solutions to modern problems, a team of researchers from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur have developed a biodegradable nanoparticle-based carbenoid metabolite (BioDCM) that can help farmers protect their agricultural crops from fungal and bacterial infections.

IIT-Kanpur makes effort to bring development in grass-root

We often undermine the harmful effects of pesticides on the soil and our health. For farmers, it’s the only way to protect their crops from insects and pests. Providing much relief to the farmers and their crops, IIT-K's newest invention can remain functional at low concentrations and can match pesticides in effectiveness without having any negative impact on the soil and the health of consumers. With this, the nanoparticle-based technology is set to replace pesticides, and yield the same results minus the adverse effects.

According to IIT Kanpur, the nanoparticle acts fast as it is applied in bioactive form and can withstand high temperatures. Reportedly, the nanoparticle has been developed in association with C. Kannan and Divya Mishra from ICAR-Indian Institute of Rice Research, and R Balamurugan and Mou Mandal from the School of Chemistry, University of Hyderabad.

IIT-K tackling ground issues like a PRO

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IIT Kanpur has always tried to merge innovation with ground issues and has developed solutions to boost crop yield and solve many of the problems afflicting Indian agriculture. In December last year, the institute launched an innovative soil testing device called Bhu Parikshak. Contrary to the previous technique which took days to give out the soil test report, the new technique is much more advanced and accurate and takes up to 90 sec to give out the result.

There is a sudden surge of natural products in organic farming and products that are exported. Since the nanoparticle technique developed by IIT-Kanpur is a biodegradable and non-harmful alternative of pesticides, it can be expected to help a number of farmers who want to cut down the use of chemicals in farming, especially pesticides, and change the way India grows its crops.