Sustainable Agro-Ecosystems: The Role of Innovative Amendments in Crop Production Under Polluted Environments

Dear Colleagues,

Global demand for food is expected to continue increasing markedly in the coming decades, mainly due to human population growth, but also to rising incomes in developing countries. In fact, an increase of 47% in the global food consumption has been estimated for the period 2010–2050. Consequently, sustaining crop production and food security has become an alarming and pressing issue for the scientific community. On the other hand, the increase in industrialization has caused the deterioration of soil, environment, and ultimately food quality. Agricultural crop production has been especially threatened by climatic extremes, including but not limited to droughts, salinity stress, heavy metal stress, water logging, heat waves, potentially toxic elements (PTEs), and attack by pathogens. Agricultural development in this regard has served to sustain crop production under stressed environments, but often with negative impacts on the environment. Therefore, more suitable strategies should be considered to produce more food on the existing land base, while simultaneously reducing environmental impacts. Pertinent to this, novel agricultural approaches to sustain agricultural production on marginal/degraded lands have been developed, our understanding of the effects of innovative (organic and inorganic) amendments on crop stress (biotic and abiotic) tolerance is limited. Recently, plant–microbe interactions have gained the attention of the scientific community to combat plant stresses. This Special Issue will also focus on such interactions, rhizospheric modifications/engineering, and the role of plant-growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) in sustainable crop production.

This Special Issue in the journal Sustainability will aim to gather a collection of high-quality works on sustainable agro-ecosystems through supporting crop production under polluted environments using advanced organic and inorganic amendments.

We are pleased to welcome original and technical articles, reviews, short communications, and meta-analyses pertaining to the following keywords.

Prof. Dr. Muhammad Naveed
Dr. Adnan Mustafa
Guest Editors

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