BIOFERTILIZERS: SUSTAINABLE SOLUTIONS FOR AGRICULTURAL CROP PRODUCTIVITY

Across the globe, the greatest challenge of agriculture systems is to producefood, manage stresses, and confront the prevailed dependency on chemicalinputs including fertilizers and pesticides. From crop emergence to maturity,there is an increased risk of occurrence of pests and weeds. Pathogens attackplants resulting in huge crop losses every year, which vary from 15-20% andsuch diseases are caused by viruses, fungi, bacteria and nematodes. Anystress management is vital in agriculture to maintain crop health andproductivity so as to meet food security requirements for a continuousincrease in the estimated world population. Ongoing production ofagricultural crops largely depends on various soil types and surroundingenvironments, but crop production faces abiotic stresses also worldwide dueto changing climate conditions such as rising temperature, increasingsalinity, floods, drought, frequent floods, and ozone damage. It is, therefore,a challenging task to employ effective technologies for pest immunity anddisease management against the current burden of the global increasingpopulation. Thus, there is a need for a more eco-compatible technology thatcan somehow justify abundant agricultural crop production by consideringhealth issues as well as harmful effects on the environment. Traditionally,soils rich in natural nutrients have been used for agriculture. Sinceagricultural crops rely on synthetic fertilizers and agro-chemicals for highestcrop production therefore biofertilizers are a good solution to combatagricultural pests. Biofertilizers and organic farming are a holistic crop andsoil management methods with little use of chemical inputs. Around 3% ofthe world"s arable land is cultivated with organic farming. Organic cropbiology increased from 1.7 million hectares in 2020 to 195 million hectaresworldwide in 2022. The fertilizers used in this method are rock phosphate,bone meal, green manure, and paucity cake. Application of natural productfertilizers enhance crop quality and productivity and provide naturalnutrients. Modern agriculture requires balanced nutrition and crop pest anddisease management strategy for public health and safe environment. Thisprocess can be obtained by the use of bio fertilizers, weed, and biologicalcontrol agents. Biofertilizers are natural living things containing plantnutrients that provide nutrients to the plant. On the other hand, booster focusneeds on the minimum use of synthetic chemicals by focusing onbiofertilizers and biocontrol agents for large crop production free of harmfulchemicals.