Handbook of Biofertilizers and

The success of green revolution depends upon the availability offertilizers, high yielding variety of seeds, improved agronomical practices and timely availability of water. The demand for nitrogenous fertilizers has been increasing out its production has always fallen short. In spite of unlimited supply ofN2 in the air, manufacturing the fertilizer for today's needs required 544 x 109 MJ of fossil fuel energy which is equivalent to about 13 million tons of oil-a nonrenewable source. We need about 230-240 m.t. offoodgrains by 2000 A.D. On the other hand the demand for the fertilizer nitrogen produced by using non-renewable fossil fuels cannot be met through domestic production. In such a scenario, the use of microbes who do nut need fossil energy is of immense value for increasing soil productivity in India, where most of agriculture is low input subsistence farming through biological nitrogen fixation or increased efficiency of fertilizers applied.