Biochar in Ecological Restoration of Degraded Lands, Soil Health, and Food Crops Safety

ABSTRACT Agro‐chemicals intensive agriculture, coupled with biomass burning in ‘ethno‐agricultural systems’ or shifting cultivated Jhum lands, stress the global agroecosystems with soil degradation and expanding marginal lands, causing food security and public health safety challenges. The pressing limitations of physico‐chemical treatment methods, underscore the quest for designer or engineered biochar. However, abundantly generated agro‐wastes utilization in ‘Agricultural‐residues‐derived‐Biochar (ARBC)’ production are inadequately explored for eco‐restoring soil health. Deploying ARBCs may offer land restoration by addressing heavy metals/metalloids pollution and revitalizing soil fertility. Present review, therefore envisions to fill the existing knowledge voids in ARBC‐mediated ameliorations of soil quality, crops yield, and food safety, using standard methodologies. Results reveal that agro‐waste biochar leverages soil restoration by modulating soil‐physico‐chemical characteristics, microbial enzymes, and oxidative stress tolerance mechanisms. Further, techno‐economic advances in manoeuvring nano‐biochar can augment the ARBC‐efficiencies as ‘slow release nutrient fertilizers’, C‐sequestration bioagent, metals bio‐adsorbent, together resulting in ‘climate change‐resilient‐smart agriculture’. Moreover, ARBC‐amended ‘agroecosystem engineering’ for land eco‐restoration are aligned with the accomplishment of several ‘Sustainable Development Goals’ (SDGs). Nevertheless, existing limitations in terms of application protocols, optimizing biochar‐dose, standardized feedstock selections, pollutant's release on biochar aging, together constraints long‐term scalable ARBC‐applications. In conclusion, targeted future researches, devising standardized methods to investigate the ‘Life Cycle Assessment’ and possible ecological risks of repeated long‐term scalable biochar use can address these challenges. Prioritizing the field‐scale studies on commercial ARBC‐applications, in‐tuned with techno‐economic, scientific, nanotechnology, biotechnological, and risk‐assessment advances can potentially restore the degraded lands to help achieve sustainability paradigm in agriculture systems.