Agricultural and Food Chemistry

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Agricultural chemists work with food producers to increase yields, improve quality, and reduce costs. They also study the causes and effects of biochemical reactions related to plant and animal growth, seek ways to control these reactions, and develop chemical products that provide help in controlling these reactions. Chemical products developed to assist in the production of food, feed, and fibre include herbicides, fungicides, insecticides, plant growth regulators, fertilizers, and animal feed supplements. Agricultural chemistry is most often linked to food and fibre production, specifically for human consumption. Increased agricultural production, in combination with additional resource consumption and waste generation, has caused environmental degradation. By understanding key concepts in agricultural chemistry, we can utilize the soil resource to produce an adequate food supply and protect the environment.

Whereas food chemistry encompasses how products change under food processing techniques and ways either to enhance or to prevent them from happening. Food chemistry can be applied in the analysis of dietary content to monitor or improve nutrition, in the determination of contaminants to ensure food safety. Chemical food analysis is used to compare food products that utilize different ingredients, or that are subjected to different processing methods.