Interlinking Soil Microbial Diversity and Rhizodeposition for Enhancing Nutrient Uptake and Productivity

Abstract

To provide suffi cient food and nutrition to an estimated world population of 9.6 billion by 2050, the present level
of global food production has to be increased by 50-70%. This monumental task will be abysmally diffi cult to
achieve, owing to the reduction in arable land, increase in frequency and intensity of climate extremes, shrinkage
in available agricultural inputs, reduction in soil fertility and organic carbon, predicted inundation of coastal
ecosystems due to ingression of seawater, reduction in the diversity of plants due to rapid aff orestation, the
incidence of newer pests and diseases, etc