Agriculturally important microorganisms as biofertilizers: Commercialization and regulatory requirements in Asia

Abstract

Biofertilizer refers to the different formulations of living preparations of agriculturally important beneficial microorganisms (bacteria/fungi) with certain desirable physiological and behavioral characters which are utilized for crop nutrition management programs. The major attributes of quality of different biofertilizers is well established and efforts are being made to regularize the production and marketing of these biofertilizer products. During the last two decades, biofertilizer production and marketing exhibited phenomenal growth in most of the Asian countries. Now time has come to form some set of rules assuring the quality of biofertilizers available in the market. In any microbial biofertilizer formulation, viable cell count is the crucial parameter, while the ability of organisms to fix nitrogen or solubilize phosphorus, potassium, zinc, etc. is important efficiency characters being considered in formulating the quality standards for biofertilizers. In the present chapter, the situation of biofertilizer quality control and regulatory mechanism in Asia are discussed.