Geo-Authentication of Indian Moringa oleifera Using AI and Soil Mineral Analysis: Concepts, Current Evidence, and Future Directions

Intrinsic chemical fingerprints (ICPs) enable geo-authentication of plant-based foods in a manner that will enable traceability, fraud prevention, and support origin-related quality assurance claims. Moringa oleifera is a plant-based food/superfood (technically a functional food) which is highly nutritious, a native plant to the Indian subcontinent, and extensively cultivated and exported by India. Despite this, there have been no scientifically validated methodologies pertaining to the verification of the geographic origin of Moringa oleifera. This review aims to describe and present the existing literature on the conceptual frameworks, soil mineral signatures, artificial intelligence (AI) geo-authentication techniques, and geoauthentication of M. oleifera from India, particularly the geo-authentication of Indian M. oleifera from India. Artificial intelligence (AI) geo-authentication techniques, soil mineral signatures, and geo-authentication of Indian M. oleifera from India have been the focus of this review. The interrelations of soil geochemistry, soil minerals, climate, soil mineralogy, and planting and cultivation (farming) practices establish region-specific stable elemental and isotopic and metabolome signatures. These signatures may be elucidated by employing an array of analytical methodologies (e.g., ICP-MS, XRF, spectroscopy, stable isotope ratio analysis, and untargeted metabolomics). There is ample evidence of similar crops (e.g. spices, tea, rice, grapes) indicating that origin classification from multiple geo-graphical zones is theoretically derived from the fusion of Machine learning (ML) and multivariate analytical techniques (MVA) to achieve elevated classification precision (e.g. Principal Component Analysis (PCA), Partial Least Squares Discriminant Analysis (PLS-DA), Support Vector Machine (SVM), and Random Forest (RF). There is a relatively great deal of literature pertaining to Moringa, from which there exist documented considerable differences in mineral and metabolite compositions from single localized sampling points. However, there exists a considerable gap in systematically obtained geo-referenced data from Indian locations. The review elucidates important gaps in research and suggests next steps like nation-wide soil–plant sampling, data fusion, AI model building, field-deployable tools, and digital traceability system integration. The trust of consumers can be augmented, regulatory requirements can be met, and zonebased branding can be achieved, along with the strengthening of the sustainability and competitiveness of India’s Moringa sector by establishing a science-based geo-authentication framework for Indian Moringa oleifera.