Impact of Gaseous Air Pollutants on Agricultural Crops in Developing Countries: A Review

Abstract

This review provides knowledge about air pollution and its impact on agriculture crop yield and quality in developing countries. The need of increasing agriculture production has been very important for the increasing of population. Air pollutants pose risks on yield of crops depending on the emission pattern, atmospheric transport and leaf uptake and on the plant’s biochemical defence capacity. In the recent research it is identified that the agriculture production is being affected by air pollution, the impact of air pollution is caused by number of air pollutants (sulphur dioxide (SO2), Nitrogen oxides (NOx), and Ozone (O3). Air pollutants produce reactive oxygen species (ROS), which adversely affect biochemical processes of plants and reduce their tolerance capacity to other stresses also. Several vital physiological processes such as photosynthetic CO2 fixation and energy metabolism are also affected negatively by air pollutants. An adverse effect caused by air pollutants depends not only upon its concentration, but also on the duration and combination of air pollutants. Ozone is the most phytotoxic of the common air pollutants. It is concluded that the continuous increasing concentration of pollutants will pose a critical threat to future world food security.