Mineral biofortification and metal/metalloid accumulation in food crops: recent research and trends (Part III)

Abstract

Widespread deficiencies of essential minerals in human populations require the agricultural sector to produce nutritious plant-based foods. For that, mineral biofortification of food crops is a promising approach (Stangoulis and Knez 2022). On the other hand, the contamination of soil resources and the resultant accumulation of heavy metal(loid)s in food crops have increased dietary exposure to these toxic elements (Anaman et al. 2022). In such a situation, developing strategies for producing mineral-dense plant-based foods having only the permissible levels of heavy metal(loid)s is urgent and highly challenging.Considering the importance of the research area, a special issue of Crop & Pasture Science was called to publish the latest research on Mineral Biofortification and Metal/Metalloid Accumulation in Food Crops. In response to the call, 226 manuscripts were submitted to the journal from the six continents. Due to time and page limitations, we were able to publish only 52 manuscripts in the special issue. Thirty-three articles were included in the previous two parts of the special issue (Hussain 2022a, 2022b) and the remaining 19 are included in this last part.