ABSTRACT
Agriculture is the mainstay of India’s economic system, with a significant contribution of about twenty-seven percent of the country’s total Gross domestic product (GDP). However, the challenge demands the storage of agricultural products. Both pre-and postharvest factors are known to affect their shelf life and quality. Postharvest loss of grains occurs in farms when grains are threshed, winnowed, and dried during transportation, processing, and storage of fresh produce. In such a scenario, concerns regarding the preservation of agricultural products for sustainable national food security prevail. Nanotechnology has gained wide acceptance due to newer possible applications at the nanometer scale. Interventions of nanotechnology during each stage of farming from seed storage, priming, seed germination, fertigation, and postharvest management are being interrogated cautiously. Applications of nanotechnology in different agricultural domains explored so far have helped develop innovative, more substantial, cost-effective polymeric and composite-based packaging materials with efficient physical properties, gas, and water barrier properties, and so on. The use of suitable and protective packaging materials can substantially increase the shelf life of agricultural produce. Therefore, nanoparticle-based coatings and films are of great interest, especially organic nanoparticles owing to their environment-friendly properties. Sources of organic nanoparticles include polysaccharides, proteins, lipids, and other polymers. This review aims to describe the current applications of nanotechnology in the postharvest management of crop produce via the employment of organic nanoparticles.
