Microbial Inoculants: Effective Biofertilizers for Improving Crop Productivity

In 2025, the world's population is expected to reach 10 billion, making food security a global concern.Improving agricultural production in response to changing climatic circumstances is crucial for maintaining global food security.Conventional farming operations commonly employ artificial/chemical fertilizers to increase crop output, but these have several detrimental environmental and human health consequences.Researchers have long focused on alternative crop fertilization methods, and biofertilizers are becoming increasingly common in agriculture worldwide.Biofertilizers, made from indigenous plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria, are a cost-effective and environmentally friendly way to enhance crop productivity.This article provides an overview of microbial inoculants as biofertilizers, covering their types, modes of action, crop productivity impacts, problems, and limitations.This article focuses on the use of biofertilizers in agriculture to promote plant growth through nitrogen fixation, phytohormone production, siderophore generation, nutrient solubilization, and easy uptake by crop plants.This review article discusses how microbial inoculants might improve agricultural productivity and their challenges and limitations.