Global and Regional Sustainability Challenges for Plant and Soil Nutrient Management

The global population is expected to reach 9.5 billion people by 2050. It is projected to cross 11 billion by the end of the century. Consequently, there is a need to expand crop production by 1.5 folds to satisfy the projected demand. Therefore, a major emphasis is ironically made on increasing the quantity of agricultural produce through different mismanaged agricultural practices. These practices are intensified in developing and underdeveloped nations facing socio-economic issues to feed their ever-increasing population. Therefore, there is an urgent requirement for smart, semi-sustainable nutrient management to improve soil and plant productivity, focusing on their resilience and endurance. Moreover, plant nutrient management often connects with food and nutrition security, mitigating pollution and climate change, limiting biodiversity loss, and other associated socio-economic issues. This management refers to improving the soil’s overall vital nutrient resources and their transformation for improving plant vigor. However, the fortification of nutrients also does not meet the sustainability scenario standards. Furthermore, this prospective practice also seeks to be overhauled under the appropriate socio-economic framework to offer wider benefits to the end-users. Therefore, there are multiple bottlenecks in various adopted practices under sustainable plant nutrition management at the regional and global levels. Hence, examining the role of plant and soil nutrient management and its plausible limitation in providing agroecosystem services is essentially required to develop a holistic framework. Therefore, the present chapter discusses the diverse efforts in managing the plant and soil nutrients and highlights some tipping challenges at the regional and global levels, providing a window of opportunity for further exploratory research.