With ever increasing world population, the demands on food safety and security are also expected to substantially increase over the next few decades. As agronomic practices, agricultural mechanization and plant breeding technologies have already been extensively exploited, novel techniques need to be explored and implemented to enhance crop production. To this end, the emerging area of laser-based technologies has shown potential to bring about another revolution in enhancing quantity, quality, and safety of foods. This paper presents an exhaustive review of the use of five non-invasive non-destructive laser-based techniques in agriculture, namely laser biostimulation, light detection and ranging, laser land levelling, laser-induced fluorescence spectroscopy, and Raman spectroscopy. Herein we provide the advantages, status quo and challenges of each of these techniques and conclude with recommendations for future work. A comprehensive review of literature reveals the untapped potential of laser applications in agriculture that has the potential to unleash the next agricultural revolution.

随着世界人口的不断增加，预计未来几十年对食品安全和保障的需求也将大幅增加。随着农艺实践、农业机械化和植物育种技术的广泛应用，需要探索和实施新技术以提高作物产量。为此，新兴的基于激光的技术领域已显示出在提高食品数量、质量和安全性方面带来另一场革命的潜力。本文详细介绍了五种基于非侵入性非破坏性激光技术在农业中的应用，即激光生物刺激、光探测和测距、激光土地平整、激光诱导荧光光谱和拉曼光谱。在这里，我们提供了优势，这些技术的现状和挑战，并以对未来工作的建议结束。对文献的全面回顾揭示了激光在农业中应用的未开发潜力，有可能引发下一次农业革命。