Food and Scientific Reports ISSN 2582-5437 March 2020 │Volume 1 │Page 4-8 Monika Kundu 1 , Ananta Vashisth 2 , Achchlelal Yadav 3 and P. Krishnan 4 1, 3 Scientist, Division of Agricultural Physics, ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, mkkundu07@gmail.com 2 Principal Scientist, Division of Agricultural Physics, Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi. 4 Head, Division of Agricultural Physics, ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi. ABSTRACT Globally there is ever increasing bumper productions of food grains and oilseeds. However, the problem of quality and safety evaluation of this produce is a matter of concern among researchers and academicians. In addition, the postharvest losses arising due to lack of necessary rapid and low cost portable gadgets and technologies further intensifies the problem. In this regard, the conventional methods suffer from subjectivity, time consuming and require skilled persons to handle the instrument. Thus, to combat the challenges in agriculture sector biosensor technology has provided smart and advanced solution and has potential to replace already existing techniques. Key words: Biosensor, nanotechnology, food, quality and safety The agricultural sector is the backbone of an economy. The quality and safety assessment in agriculture is of prime importance in present scenario as due to interventions of day to day novel technologies the resulting changes in internal and external quality attributes needs to be evaluated. The efforts of researchers all over the world have significantly enhanced the production levels via introducing high yielding varieties, controlling losses due to pest attack and infestations, agricultural engineering and integrated technology approaches. The sustainable food production along with the bumper productions involves reduction of pre and post harvest losses. Now nutritional security has been acknowledged as an important part of all the agricultural policies being framed globally. The falling levels of nutrition in the agricultural produce are of serious concern today. So along with the testing for presence of unwanted (foreign) material as contaminant in the agricultural produce there is need for evaluating the nutritional content also to ensure good health of consumers. The frequently occurring diseases outbreaks compel us to look out for easy, low-cost and smart technologies for the quality and safety assessment of agricultural produce. Conventional techniques are subjective, expensive, time consuming and laborious. In this regard, the intervention of nanotechnology is instrumental for steering the research and innovations in this direction. The role of nanomaterials based biosensors in agriculture is now key research area of interest among scientists and researchers. A biosensor is a device consisting of a biomolecule, a matrix, transducer and signal processing unit. An analyte of interest is detected in any agricultural sample based on specific biomolecule interaction reaction. Now the research focus is directed in search of novel nanomaterials, nanocomposites and nanostructures for improving the biosensing characteristics. Nanomaterials of different shapes and size presently being used in different application areas are carbon nanotubes, nanorods, nanowires, quantum nanodots, graphenes etc. (Fig. 1) Fig 1: Various types of nanomaterials for fabrication of biosensors Biosensing Technology: Panacea for Quality and Safety Assessment in Agriculture