Metrolomics: Pioneering Holistic Measurement for Nurturing Sustainable Agriculture

20 May 2025 marks the 150th anniversary of World Metrology Day, a UNESCO International Day commemorating the 1875 m Convention—a pivotal agreement that unified global measurement standards and propelled collaborative innovation in metrology. This year's theme, ‘Measurements for all times, for all people’, aligns with the trend of ensuring food safety, enhancing food quality, and achieving personalised nutrition control for populations at different developmental stages, of diverse ethnicities, and with varied physical constitutions. To accomplish this goal, higher demands are placed on sensing technologies and omics technologies. It necessitates the establishment of a series of long-term, real-time smart detection methods integrated with high-precision algorithms [1]. This will motivate technological upgrades across the entire food industry chain, including crop cultivation, food processing, and transportation, enabling more precise and intelligent sustainable development, and ultimately meet dynamic personalised nutritional demands throughout the entire human lifespan. Metrology, the science of measurement and its applications, not only ensures precision in agricultural and food industries but also facilitates data-driven decision-making for personalised demand [2]. From crop cultivation to food processing, metrology plays a pivotal role in maintaining standards and ensuring efficiency. However, it often operates in isolation from other scientific disciplines. In today's era of interdisciplinary collaboration, there's a pressing need for metrology to extend its reach beyond traditional boundaries. We introduce the term ‘metrolomics’ to signify the merging of metrology principles with not only omics technologies, including genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, and phenomics, but also artificial intelligence, deep learning, and modelling construction for a holistic measurement, which opens up new avenues for highly flexible and accurate food production (Figure 1). Metrolomics can leverage genomics to identify genetic markers associated with desirable traits in crops, such as disease resistance or nutritional content, for safer and higher quality production [3]. Similarly, proteomics, metabolomics and phenomics, employed in measuring agriproduct quality, can provide insights into biochemical pathways underlying quality traits formation [4]. By integrating these omics data with key metrological principles such as accuracy, certainty, traceability, and standardisation, metrolomics enhances our ability to monitor and optimise agricultural processes, ultimately leading to more sustainable and resilient food systems. Illustration of the concept of metrolomics, detailing its composition, scope, and contents. Metrolomics integrates metrological principles with omics technologies and spans a wide range of research domains, which allows more precise and holistic measurements and well-informed decision making. Metrolomics extends its reach to market inspection, artificial intelligence, and policy making, while also embracing the transformative advancements brought forth by quantum metrology. Traditional metrology primarily focuses on obtaining precise measurements of individual parameters without considering their broader context. In contrast, metrolomics recognises the interconnectedness of multiple factors, encompassing both bio-factors and various environmental factors, and their collective influence on agricultural systems. By correlating data from multiple sources, including soil and weather characteristics, crop/livestock physiology and genetic information, and product processing and quality, metrolomics provides a comprehensive understanding of entire agricultural processes. This holistic approach helps make informed decisions that optimise resource use, enhance productivity, and minimise environmental impact. Metrolomics uses AI and analytics on big data to assess risks, maintain balance, and guide decisions, while emphasising adherence to standards in bio/environmental testing and data analysis for reproducible, comparable results. Moreover, metrolomics pursues to intersect with quantum metrology, which greatly improves the accuracy and repeatability of measurement, due to the consistency and stability of quantum systems. For instance, nitrogen–vacancy-centre-based magnetometry allows detection with subcellular resolution, which provide novel method for food authentication, food quality and safety assessment [5]. In the endeavour to assess and forecast food flavour and sensory appreciation grounded on its chemical attributes, the quantification of chemical constituents pivotal to food flavour often poses a technologically intricate and labour-intensive task [6]. Furthermore, sensory perception is intricately shaped by multi-factors encompassing consumer genetics, environmental stimuli, cultural influences, and psychological predispositions. Metrolomics conducts thorough analysis of food quality with metabolomic tools, which unveils distinctive chemical fingerprints associated with specific ingredients or production processes. Moreover, metrolomics utilises transcriptomics to probe gene expression patterns during key stages of quality formation, uncovering functional genic markers indicative of farming management and harvest. By cross-referencing these metabolic/transcriptomic profiles with established databases, metrolomics ensures that food products adhere to strict quality and labelling standards. In a recent study, Schreurs et al. undertook a comprehensive approach by amalgamating exhaustive chemical analyses and sensory evaluations across diverse commercial beers with advanced machine learning methodologies [7]. This study showcases how metrolomics transcends limitations of classical multivariate statistical techniques and conventional machine learning approaches, exemplifying its role in elevating food quality. For maintaining food authenticity, metrolomics harnesses genomics to scrutinise the genetic makeup of food items, offering insights into their origin, purity, and genetic fidelity. By scrutinising DNA sequences, metrolomics can swiftly identify the presence of genetically modified organisms or contaminants, mitigating the risk of food fraud and misrepresentation. Furthermore, proteomic tools empower metrolomics to analyse overall protein composition in food products, facilitating the detection of adulterants or substitutions that may compromise authenticity. Furthermore, metrolomics conducts a comprehensive evaluation of food quality and authenticity, ensuring compliance with regulatory mandates and consumer expectations. The assurance of food safety is of utmost importance in the agricultural and food industries, and metrolomics serves as a cornerstone in achieving this objective. By following a series of national and international standards of sampling, processing and quantification, metrolomics leverages omics-based analytical techniques to detect and quantify contaminants, allergens, and other potential hazards in food products with unparalleled precision and sensitivity throughout the whole food production chain. For example, in the detection of microbial contaminants such as Salmonella and E. Coli, metrolomics enables rapid and accurate identification through DNA sequencing and protein profiling, thereby facilitating early intervention to prevent outbreaks of foodborne illnesses. Moreover, metrolomics plays a crucial role in ensuring the integrity of food products by enabling the traceability of ingredients and verifying labelling claims. By analysing data from multiple omics platforms and integrating environmental monitoring data, metrolomics can identify potential hazards that enter from the environment to foods, comprehensively assess their risk on food safety, and develop targeted interventions not only to minimise risks and ensure consumer protection, but also improve precision in nutrition management [8]. In Figure 2, we demonstrate a metrolomic route of safeguarding rice grain safety from heavy metal pollutions. Through the integration of advanced, reliable measurements and standardized methodologies, metrolomics enhances transparency, accountability, and trust in the food supply chain, thereby promoting consumer confidence and ensuring the integrity of the global food system, and facilitates compliance with stringent regulatory standards and quality assurance protocols. An example showing metrolomics-driven sustainable agriculture for crop growth in soils prone to heavy metal pollution. (a) An expert system provides accurate and professional advice on growing strategies based on weather and soil conditions monitored by smart sensors; (b) New varieties with reduced accumulation of heavy metal elements are developed through combination of accurate measurement of hazardous substances, high-throughput agronomic phenotyping with smart machinery, high-throughput genotyping, and reliable analysis employing artificial intelligence and machine learning; (c) the harvested produce undergoes standardized processing procedures and is subject to effective market inspection utilising modernised and rapid detection methods such as DNA barcoding technology, enabling traceability of origin and authenticity. In crop production, assessing and optimising irrigation settings is a critical endeavour. Through advanced sensing technologies and analytics, metrolomics enables the precise monitoring of soil moisture levels, nutrient content, and pH, allowing for tailored irrigation and fertilization strategies that minimise resource wastage and environmental impact while maximising crop performance. Carucci et al. implemented an irrigation system reliant on both plant water status and soil moisture levels to reduce water usage in tomato cultivation [9]. Additionally, the system was equipped with a rain sensor to prevent unnecessary irrigation during rainy weather. By integrating multi-dimensional data, metrolomics enables a deeper understanding of the complex interactions between environmental factors, crop genetics, and agronomic practices, paving the way for targeted interventions to mitigate stressors and optimise productivity. For instance, Guo et al. precisely measured P-acquisition efficiency of 274 soybean varieties [10]. Integrated with whole-genome resequencing, they discover the causal gene GmPHF1 conditioning P transportation efficiency. Introduction of the high-efficiency allele of GmPHF1 significantly improved P absorption efficiency without overapplication of P fertilizers, demonstrating the transformative potential of metrolomics in revolutionising agricultural practices and safeguarding global food security. Metrolomics spearheads the advancement of agro-ecosystem sustainability through its comprehensive approach to environmental monitoring and resource management. Through in-depth research on complex dynamics of agricultural system, metrolomics provides invaluable insights into the environmental impacts of farming practices and facilitates the wise utilization of resources. Intelligent measurement of temperature, humidity, air pressure, light intensity, flow rate, and online measurement calibration can support the development of modern production facilities such as rational greenhouses and plant factories, crucial for optimising resource usage and boosting food supply capacity. In regions where water scarcity poses a significant challenge to agricultural productivity and ecological balance, metrolomics enables the deployment and management of innovative water-saving irrigation facilities, such as closed-pipe flow metres and micro-flow metres for drip irrigation, thereby enhancing water efficiency in farming practices. Metrolomics also facilitates precise measurement of soil nutrient levels, offering critical data for optimising fertilization strategies and minimising nutrient runoff. Through comprehensive analysis of the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum, metrolomics integrates multi-dimensional measurements to empower farmers to implement targeted interventions that enhance environmental stability and crop health, which plays a pivotal role in assessing the ecological balance within agro-ecosystems. Metrolomics represents a paradigm shift in agricultural and food measurement and management, offering unprecedented dimension, precision, efficiency and stability in the pursuit of high-quality agriproducts. By harnessing the synergies between metrological principles and advanced technologies, metrolomics pioneers sustainable solutions for global food systems. However, the actual role of metrolomics needs to be catalysed by efficient quantitative analysis strategies. Traditional reductionist-based analyses may not be enough to reveal and understand the fundamental principles behind metrolomics data. Mathematics-intensive systems approaches, combined with reductionist analyses, will be an unavoidable choice for leveraging metrolomics as a promising discipline of value. C. Lu and Y. Cheng prepared the manuscript and figures. Y. Zhou conducted investigation, S. Teng and S. Dai provided insights in recent researches. P. Xu was in charge of the structure of the whole work and revision of manuscript. This work is funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China (32372718, 32201254, U24A20419). The authors declare no conflicts of interest.