Metabolomics and Agriculture: What Can Be Done?

ABSTRACT

The importance of Brazil as a producer and exporter of food and feed will continuously increase. Despite the recent economic and political problems in Brazil, the scientific field is expanding. Cutting-edge technology has only recently become available in the country, and we can now also join efforts with the global community to tackle global challenges. Using metabolomics based on mass spectrometry approaches to understand system-wide metabolism and metabolic pathways can have a significant impact in the society. With the recent development of a platform for organization and sharing of tandem mass spectrometry data, the global community can now work with complex biological samples. In this Perspective, we aim to describe how challenges and problems in global and local agriculture can be addressed using metabolomics based on mass spectrometry strategies.