The present article
critically and comprehensively reviews the
most recent reports on smart sensors for determining glyphosate (GLP),
an active agent of GLP-based herbicides (GBHs) traditionally used
in agriculture over the past decades. Commercialized in 1974, GBHs
have now reached 350 million hectares of crops in over 140 countries
with an annual turnover of 11 billion USD worldwide. However, rolling
exploitation of GLP and GBHs in the last decades has led to environmental
pollution, animal intoxication, bacterial resistance, and sustained
occupational exposure of the herbicide of farm and companies’
workers. Intoxication with these herbicides dysregulates the microbiome-gut-brain
axis, cholinergic neurotransmission, and endocrine system, causing
paralytic ileus, hyperkalemia, oliguria, pulmonary edema, and cardiogenic
shock. Precision agriculture, i.e., an (information technology)-enhanced
approach to crop management, including a site-specific determination
of agrochemicals, derives from the benefits of smart materials (SMs),
data science, and nanosensors. Those typically feature fluorescent
molecularly imprinted polymers or immunochemical aptamer artificial
receptors integrated with electrochemical transducers. Fabricated
as portable or wearable lab-on-chips, smartphones, and soft robotics
and connected with SM-based devices that provide machine learning
algorithms and online databases, they integrate, process, analyze,
and interpret massive amounts of spatiotemporal data in a user-friendly
and decision-making manner. Exploited for the ultrasensitive determination
of toxins, including GLP, they will become practical tools in farmlands
and point-of-care testing. Expectedly, smart sensors can be used for
personalized diagnostics, real-time water, food, soil, and air quality
monitoring, site-specific herbicide management, and crop control.