Incorporating biological preparations into agricultural production makes it easier for farmers to meet the objectives of the European Green Deal. The need to maintain a high level of yield, but this time without any increase in unit fertiliser use per hectare of field, is one of the basic premises for implementing the EGD concept.
Our products fit into this strategy. For many years, the agricultural production system has operated with virtually no regard for the role of microorganisms and their influence on nutrient metabolism, support of granular structure formation or humification, or even healthiness. The intensification of agriculture, to a large extent linked, for example, to ploughing, the lack of proper crop rotation as well as years of use of fertilisers and plant protection products, has led to a severe depletion of soils with the right amount and availability of bacteria. Over the years, it has been possible to maintain productivity mainly by intensifying mineral fertilisation.
Supporting modern agriculture through the use of bacterial preparations is therefore a necessity, without which it is difficult to imagine the development of crop production. A very good example of this is AzotoPower, a bacterial preparation based on a unique bacterial multiplication process that includes free-living isolates of bacteria from the Azotobacter and Arthrobacter genera, which have the ability to fix atmospheric nitrogen. Biological N fixation involves the conversion of atmospheric nitrogen, which is a very weakly reactive gas, into ammonia that is taken up by plants as the ammonium ion, or converted by other groups of bacteria to the readily available nitrate form. Not only do these bacteria efficiently fix atmospheric nitrogen, they also have a beneficial effect on other groups of bacteria carrying out the transformation processes of organic nitrogen occurring with the decomposition of bacterial proteins. In this way, it is therefore possible to at least partially reduce mineral fertilisation while maintaining yields at an economically viable level. It should also be remembered that increasing fertiliser efficiency means reducing greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere.
Another area of our work related to the implementation of the European Green Deal is the prevention of biodiversity decline and pollution levels. Bacteria use a wide variety of carbon compounds to grow. These include, for example, petroleum compounds and oils, but also organic pesticides of all kinds. The higher the microbiological activity, the faster their decomposition under certain conditions and thus the reduction of residues in products intended for consumption. This is one of the more interesting and very promising lines of work on microorganisms.
Awareness of the use of biopreparations is gradually increasing. This is due to the increasing scientific knowledge of them, thanks in part to the involvement of universities and other scientific institutions carrying out research into the effectiveness of the use of biological preparations. The way in which food is produced is also increasingly of interest to consumers themselves and, as a result, distributors and retailers are including healthy foods in their offerings, of which biological preparations are even becoming an indispensable component. Especially with regard to measures to reduce the use of pesticides and a production method that, while minimising their use, also reduces pesticide residues in food.
