Microbial Biotechnology and Sustainable Agriculture

Abstract Agriculture forms a significant portion of the economies of world and therefore can contribute toward major continental priorities such as eradicating poverty, hunger, rapid industrialization, economic diversification, sustainable resource, investments, and environmental management. Biotechnology is the rapidly growing segment and has diversified applications in sustainable agriculture. This chapter discusses the role of biotechnology, agroecology, and plant–microbial interaction for sustainable agriculture. For the growing world population, an intensive agricultural production is necessary to satisfy food requirements. Agricultural microbiology is presented as a synthetic research field responsible for knowledge transfer from general microbiology and microbial ecology to the agricultural biotechnology. A fundamental knowledge of the genetics, molecular biology, ecology, and evolution of symbiotic interactions could enable the development of microbe-based sustainable agriculture. Undoubtedly, getting biased rhizosphere opens new opportunities for future agricultural developments based on exploiting the beneficial microbial services to reduce the inputs of agrochemicals, thereby reaching sustainable environmental and economical goals.