Chapter 20
The Potential of Biotechnology on Soil
Quality by Minimizing Agrochemical
Impact to Ensure Sustainable AgricultureA Review
Solomon Abera
Abstract Ensuring sustainable agriculture by producing quality and adequate plant
products for the long-term with minimum influences on the environment without
compromising with the soil quality is a critical scientific goal. Once soil health is
confirmed it can maintain environmental values, sustain biological functions, and
encourage animal and plant health. Over the years, farmers and private investors
have been using agrochemicals intensively, which influences ecosystem and plant
productivity. The usual approach to improving crop productivity is by conventional
methods and use of synthetic agrochemicals, which are a slow process and pollute
the environment respectively. The rapid development of biotechnological tools like
genotyping, genetic engineering, and transcriptional profiling speed up the classical
approach and are ecofriendly. Genome-wide transcriptional profiling approaches
have been used successfully to investigate the regulation of abiotic influences on
plants: like gene regulation responses to plant nutrient uptake in roots of different
species and so on. These investigations have implications for adaptation in plants for
their respective purposes. This current chapter is focused on a recent biotechnological approach for the identification of microbes applicable in biofertilizers, identification of genes from microbial strains involved in biofertilizers application, the role
of plant molecular breeding as well as genetic engineering to minimize agrochemical
impact on sustainable agriculture.
Keywords Biotechnology · Rhizosphere microbial · Environmental safety · Soil
quality · Sustainable agriculture
S. Abera (*)
Department of Biotechnology, Addis Ababa Science and Technology University, Addis Ababa,
Ethiopia
e-mail: solomon.abera@aastu.edu.et
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
J. Aravind et al. (eds.), Strategies and Tools for Pollutant Mitigation,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63575-6_20
405
The Potential of Biotechnology on Soil
Quality by Minimizing Agrochemical
Impact to Ensure Sustainable AgricultureA Review
Solomon Abera
Abstract Ensuring sustainable agriculture by producing quality and adequate plant
products for the long-term with minimum influences on the environment without
compromising with the soil quality is a critical scientific goal. Once soil health is
confirmed it can maintain environmental values, sustain biological functions, and
encourage animal and plant health. Over the years, farmers and private investors
have been using agrochemicals intensively, which influences ecosystem and plant
productivity. The usual approach to improving crop productivity is by conventional
methods and use of synthetic agrochemicals, which are a slow process and pollute
the environment respectively. The rapid development of biotechnological tools like
genotyping, genetic engineering, and transcriptional profiling speed up the classical
approach and are ecofriendly. Genome-wide transcriptional profiling approaches
have been used successfully to investigate the regulation of abiotic influences on
plants: like gene regulation responses to plant nutrient uptake in roots of different
species and so on. These investigations have implications for adaptation in plants for
their respective purposes. This current chapter is focused on a recent biotechnological approach for the identification of microbes applicable in biofertilizers, identification of genes from microbial strains involved in biofertilizers application, the role
of plant molecular breeding as well as genetic engineering to minimize agrochemical
impact on sustainable agriculture.
Keywords Biotechnology · Rhizosphere microbial · Environmental safety · Soil
quality · Sustainable agriculture
S. Abera (*)
Department of Biotechnology, Addis Ababa Science and Technology University, Addis Ababa,
Ethiopia
e-mail: solomon.abera@aastu.edu.et
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
J. Aravind et al. (eds.), Strategies and Tools for Pollutant Mitigation,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63575-6_20
405