Bio-fertilizers: Demand of modern time and safe future

Abstract

In modern agriculture, owing to heavy usage of chemical fertilizers and pesticides on the crops, sustainability of the agriculture systems collapsed and cost of cultivation soared at a high rate. Income of farmers stagnated and food security became a daunting challenge. Indiscriminate and imbalanced use of chemical fertilizers, especially urea, along with chemical pesticides and unavailability of organic manures has led to considerable reduction in soil health. Now a day, bio fertilizers have emerged as a highly potent alternative to chemical fertilizers due to their eco-friendly, easy to apply, non-toxic and cost effective nature. They also make nutrients that are naturally abundant in soil or atmosphere, usable for plants and act as supplements to agrochemicals. Bio-fertilizers1 being essential components of organic farming play vital role in maintaining long term soil fertility and sustainability by fixing atmospheric dinitrogen (N=N), mobilizing fixed macro and micro nutrients or convert insoluble Phosphorous in the soil into available forms to plants, there by increases their efficiency and availability.