siliconindia | | August 20208Achieving global food security is a big challenge, especially in a world with an ever growing population, acceler-ating consumption and deteriorating global environment. It is expected that by 2050, the world's population will reach 9.2 billion, 34 percent higher than today. To keep-up with rising population and income growth, global food production must increase by 70 percent to be able to feed the world. In the 20th cen-tury, crop yield has increased manifold by use of chemical pesticides, inorganic fertil-izers and growth promoters. The answer to this challenge is sustainable agriculture.Due to indiscriminate usage of chemical fertilizers & agrochemicals, a lot of damage has already been caused to our Indian soil under cultivation & water resources across the country. It also has direct impact on quality & quantity of our farm produce, and under such circumstances, advocating inte-gration of biological inputs under integrated nutrition management (INM) and integrated crop disease & pest management (IPM) pro-gram is the need of the hour AG SOLUTION BY FOLLOWING SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE? Sustainable agriculture is `environmental-ly sound'. It preserves the quality of basic natural resources that the farms, business-es and the surrounding environment rely on, including soil, water, and air. Microbes and plants are intimate partners in virtually every life processes. Microbes helps plants by improving availability of crop nutrients, enhancing plant root growth and neutraliz-ing toxic compounds in soil. It also helps plants in improving resistance against dis-eases, deterring pathogens and mitigates abiotic stress.BIO-AG OVERVIEW & ITS IMPOR-TANCE Agricultural biological (Ag-biological) are microbial (Bacteria, Fungi, Virus) based solutions/Agriculture inputs that work to By Dhananjay Edakhe, CEO, PlantbiotiXIN MYOPINIONExperience and skilled Biol-Agriculturalist, Dhananjay has been propagating the importance Bio -Agri inputs in sustainable Agriculture. BIO-AGRICULTURE (BIOAG) IN INDIAnaturally produce healthier crops and improve yields. · Provide farmers with effective and more sustainable `low-chemical' op-tions for their agriculture practices to produce more with less in a sustain-able way.· Cost-effective tool for the farmers to safeguard high investment of seeds and other Ag chemicals.· Ag-biological can help to increase plant yields in a variety of ways such as improving plant nutrient uptake, promoting plant growth and protect-ing plants from insects, weeds and diseases.CONCEPT OF AG-BIOLOGICALBiological Agriculture inputs include a wide range of products aimed at supporting soil fertility, biological activity, and plant growth. They in-clude inocula (such as rhizobium) and biostimulants that promote favor-able microbes and plant growth, composts, manures, and bio-chars. These Increasing IPM for long-term, sustainable agriculture that achieves adequate, safe and quality food production, improves farmer livelihoods and conserves non-renewable energy
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