Sustainable organic farming using biofertilizers – option for synthetic fertilizers

Abstract

In the last few decades, synthetic chemical fertilizers have played a major role in enhancing agricultural productivity in limited agricultural lands to feed the increasing world population. At the same time, the massive usage of chemical fertilizers in the agriculture sector causes harmful impacts on both environmental ecology and human health with great severity. Therefore, enhancing crop productivity and feeding the people without adversely affecting the environmental quality is challenging for the agricultural industry. To overcome these issues, biofertilizers and biopesticides were introduced during the green revolution as a sustainable solution to reduce the usage of synthetic chemicals. Biofertilizers enclose living microorganisms that colonize the rhizosphere or the interior of the plants to stimulate its growth. When these applied to soils, seeds, or plant surfaces, they enhance the source of primary nutrients to the target crops or its accessibility. The beneficial microorganisms used as biofertilizers can interact with the crop plants and enhance their immunity, growth, and development. So, biofertilizers can be introduced with traditional organic fertilizers to enhance soil fertility for healthy plant growth. Even though biofertilizers are used all around the world, they are not much popular in Sri Lanka. Currently Sri Lanka is planning to promote organic agriculture and must introduce biofertilizers to our agricultural lands to fill the gap of synthetic chemical fertilizers. However, biofertilizers should use with extreme care in control levels to avoid unnecessary impacts in the future. For those authorities should provide the correct guidance to the biofertilizer users, manufacturers, and importers to get the maximum benefit to the Sri Lankan agriculture sector. This will lead to the safe use and to obtain maximum benefit from biofertilizer in sustainable organic farming over synthetic fertilizers.