Harnessing Biofertilizers for Sustainable Agriculture: Mechanistic Insights, Performance Variability, and Soil Health Outcomes

The world is expected to hit 9.7 billion people by 2050, and this puts more strain on agrifood production systems to enhance their productivity without sacrificing the health of the soil and the environment. Biofertilizers like those produced on the basis of useful microorganisms, like nitrogen fixing, phosphate solubilizers and plants growth promoting bacteria have seemed like potential alternatives or supplements to chemical fertilizers. This role of these microorganisms increases nutrient level, promotes root growth due to the production of phytohormones and increases plant resistance towards abiotic stress, hence contributing to crop yield and soil fertility. Greenhouse and field research indicate that single-strain and multi-strain microbial inoculants including the Effective Microorganisms (EM) can be used to increase the microbial diversity in soil, booster organic matter content and enhance water retention. The resulting responses in yield may however differ significantly depending on the crop species, soil properties, climate and management procedures. Although promising, inadequate shelf life, variability of field performance, and regulatory barriers are some of the challenges, which limit the widespread application of biofertilizers. This review will critically analyze the mechanisms behind the work of biofertilizers, compare the yearly reported effects on crop yield and soil health under different agricultural settings, and mention the main shortcomings which influence the reliability of biofertilizers. Microbial encapsulation, Artificial Intelligence-based data driven optimization, and the use of genome editing tools like CRISPR to improve the stability, efficacy, and scalability of biofertilizer solutions to address sustainable agriculture are new concepts.