Biochar: Usage, Potential as Alternative to Chemical Fertilizer and Impact of Biochar on Soil-Microbial-Plant Root Interaction

Abstract

Natural resource constraints in the country have severely hampered agricultural production, putting sustainable agriculture and food security in jeopardy. The farmer, through utilizing viable solutions, plays a critical role in ensuring that food needs of a growing human population are met, which has resulted in a greater reliance on chemical fertilizers for higher productivity. It enhances plant growth and energy, hence ensuring global food security; nevertheless, plants cultivated in this technique do not improve good plant characteristics such as root system, shoot system, nutritional features, and will not have enough time to grow and mature appropriately. Chemically generated plants will collect harmful compounds in the human body, which are extremely toxic. The adverse effects of chemical fertilizers will begin not only with their application on soil, but also with their manufacture, which will produce poisonous compounds or gases such as NH4, CO2, and CH4, among others, which will pollute the air. And when industrial pollutants are dumped into neighbouring water bodies without being cleansed, it pollutes the water it also contains the most alarming consequence of chemical waste accumulation in aquatic bodies, namely, water eutrophication. When used continuously in soil, it destroys soil health and quality, resulting in soil contamination. As a result, it is past time to recognize that this food production input is depleting our ecology and environment. As a result, continuing to use it without taking any remedial measures to minimize or judiciously use it will eventually deplete all natural resources and endanger all life on the planet. Only by adopting new agricultural technical techniques, such as transitioning from chemical intensive agriculture to organic inputs such as biochar, manure, and Nano fertilizers, can the negative effects of synthetic chemicals on human health and the environment be mitigated or eliminated. This would increase fertilizer application efficiency as well as use efficiency. Organic farming will help to maintain a healthy natural environment and ecology for current and future generations.