Importance of Plant Probiotics in Sustainable Agriculture: Challenges and Solutions

It is necessary to move towards a productive and environmentally friendly agricultural system. Some microorganisms known as plant probiotics, can be used as biological fertilizers in the production of crops. Plant probiotics are compatible with any agricultural system, including the organic system, and play a special role in protecting the environment, reducing the need to use chemical pesticides, maintaining and improving the soil structure, and producing food for the growing world population. A better awareness and understanding of the functions of plant probiotics leads to accelerate the acceptance of the advantages and use of these microorganisms and creates a potential to overcome the obstacles to the acceptance of this management process. Some of the solutions to accelerate the adoption of biological control are increasing the awareness of farmers and stakeholde in the field of successful applied examples, clarifying the economic and environmental benefits of biological control as compared to chemical control, as well as incentive policies for the use of plant probiotics through the government and private sectors.  In this article, in addition to addressing the importance of plant probiotics and their application to achieve an environmentally friendly and sustainable agricultural system, the challenges of using this management method and the solutions to solve these challenges have also been discussed.