Screening for Biological Hazards in Agricultural Products Using Newly Developed Methods: A Review

Agricultural commodities are fundamental to global nutrition and food security, but are continually vulnerable to microbiological contamination throughout cultivation, processing, and distribution. Numerous biological agents, such as bacteria, fungi, viruses, and parasites, can reduce crop yields and indirectly threaten human health via foodborne exposure or toxin accumulation. This review summarizes recent advances in analytical and diagnostic strategies for detecting these hazards in agricultural products. Conventional techniques, including polymerase chain reaction, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays, and chromatographic analyses, are increasingly being complemented by emerging molecular and biosensor technologies. Such technologies include loop-mediated and recombinase polymerase amplification, surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy, clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)/Cas-based assays, and mass spectrometric profiling. Their performances are evaluated in terms of detection accuracy, specificity, operational simplicity, and suitability for field deployment. Furthermore, this review explores the current trends in automation, nanomaterial-assisted microfluidics, and artificial intelligence-based data analysis as promising avenues for enhancing food safety and agricultural biosecurity.