Agri Mirror: Future India ISSN: 2582-6980 Vol 1 Issue 6: October 2020 7 www.aiasa.org.in Bio Fertilizers Towards Sustainable Agriculture Dambale, A. S. 1 and Kondareddy, A. N. 2 Article ID: 79 1 Department of Agronomy, Assam Agricultural University, Jorhat-13 2 Department of Soil Science, Assam Agricultural University, Jorhat-13 *Corresponding author: dambaleashok@gmail.com Introduction Current soil management practices are mainly dependent on inorganic chemical fertilizers, which cause a serious problem to human health and environment. The utilization of essential microbes as a bio fertilizer has become very importance in agriculture for their wide role in food safety and sustainable production. The eco-friendly techniques inspire a wide range of supplication of plant growth promoting rhizobacteria (PGPRs), mycorrhizal fungi (endo and ecto), cyanobacteria and many other useful microorganisms led to improvement in nutrient uptake, plant growth and tolerance to plant stress. Fertilizers have an important role in increasing crop productivity. However, chemical fertilizers are very high cost, non-environment friendly, causes eutrophication, reduces the organic matter and microbial activity in soil and are dangerous to health. Therefore, the use of bio fertilizers is helpful as they are natural origin, biodegradable in nature, organic and more cost-effective than inorganic fertilizers. For many years inorganic fertilizers are used to satisfy the soil requirement of nutrients and yield, but huge amount of these inorganic fertilizers are hazardous for environment, favorable microbes, and all living organisms as well, hence, eco-friendly and cost effective bio fertilizers can be used. Bio fertilizers consist of plant resins, organic matter and some special group of micro-organisms. Bio fertilizer are the materials which containing live cells of effective microorganisms, which may be fungi, bacteria or protozoa, they have the capacity to improve the fertility of soil by fixation of nitrogen, solubilization of phosphorus, and sequestration of iron. Bio fertilizers helps to increase the soil quality by supplying nutrients and improves the soil physical parameters by increasing the soil organic matter. The bio fertilizers contains micro-organisms, which are very important because they produce essential nutrients viz., nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus and other nutrients required for growth of the plants. Bio fertilizers are also produces some beneficial hormones viz., auxins, biotins, and cytokinins which are very important for plant growth and development. Bio fertilizers are also releases some antibiotics, which are beneficial for plants to protect against some disease causing agents. Bio fertilizers also helps in management of salinity and abiotic stress. Bio fertilizers are cost effective and environmental safe and it has huge scope in the field of research especially in the areas of