@AGROBiz November/December 2025 | Page 23

November-December. 2025 | @ AGROBiz

Smallholder farms, abattoirs, seafood processors, and smalland medium-sized( SME) food enterprises, particularly in rural areas, often lack access to centralised laboratories, trained personnel, and the financial capacity for regular testing.

BIOSENSORS

Rapid, affordable, and portable small-detection tools, such as biosensors, offer a promising solution. These compact testing devices use a biological component, such as enzymes or antibodies, in combination with a signal converter to detect contaminants, such as bacteria, toxins, or chemical residues.

A familiar example is the COVID-19 rapid test kit, which detects viral antigens in minutes without the need for laboratory facilities. In the context of food safety, this real-time capability is transformative, especially for small-scale food producers who lack access to certified testing facilities.

In agriculture, biosensors can be integrated throughout the supply chain from farms to processing facilities. Livestock and aquaculture farms can use it to monitor pathogens such as Salmonella and Vibrio species before outbreaks occur.

In crop production, biosensors can be used to identify pesticide residues or fungal toxins in cereals. Meanwhile, food producers preparing ready-to-eat meals can use portable biosensors for rapid safety checks before distribution, ensuring both religious and biological safety.

Emerging innovations such as smartphone-integrated sensors and colour-changing smart packaging offer new layers of food safety monitoring and traceability. The innovative packaging systems respond to spoilage gases or pH shifts by visually signalling freshness or contamination. Together, these technologies serve as an effective early warning tool for farmers and consumers, particularly during storage and distribution.

WHAT’ S HOLDING IT BACK?

Despite its promise, biosensor adoption within the agrofood industry remains limited.

Agencies such as JAKIM( which oversees halal certification) and the Ministry of International Trade and Industry( MITI) have shown interest in integrating emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence( AI) and blockchain, to enhance traceability in the halal supply chain, aligned with the Industrial Revolution 4.0( MITI, 2025).

However, the incorporation of biosensors into regulatory guidelines has yet to be realised. Without official standards, validation protocols or field certification, farmers and producers may hesitate to adopt these unfamiliar technologies.

Moreover, many biosensor prototypes are still being refined and require validation across various food types and environmental conditions.

SMARTER AND SAFER

Food safety is more than a regulatory requirement. It is the responsibility of producers, authorities, and the community to ensure that every product reaching consumers is safe, clean, and trustworthy. From an ethical perspective, safeguarding human health is not merely a scientific obligation but a moral one. The Prophet Muhammad SAW said,

“ There should be neither harm nor reciprocating harm.”( Ibn Majah, 2341) This hadith reflects the universal value of protecting life and preventing harm. Integrating biosensors into agrofood systems is therefore not only a technological advancement but also a moral imperative.

It allows producers to prevent contamination before it occurs, especially with microbial hazards that cannot be detected by sight or smell. Biosensors should not be viewed as replacing the existing audits and regulations, but rather as a complementary tool that is more scientifically precise.

By empowering farmers, processors and vendors to monitor safety in quickly and on-site, these technologies can help build a more resilient and trustworthy food industry.

As innovation becomes more accessible, it is time for food assurance systems to evolve beyond visual inspection, becoming smarter and more inclusive to protect humankind in today’ s complex and interconnected food landscape.

- @ AGROBiz