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Current agriculture faces multiple challenges due to boom in food demand and environmental concerns. Biochar is increasingly being recognized by scientists and policy makers for its potential role in carbon sequestration, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, renewable energy, waste mitigation and as a soil amendment. The purpose of this review is to provide a balanced perspective on the agronomic and environmental impacts of biochar amendment to soil. Application of biochar to soil can play a significant role in the alteration of nutrients dynamics, soil contaminants as well as microbial functions. Therefore, strategic biochar application to soil may provide agronomic, environmental and economic benefits. Recent findings also supported that in order to enhance crop yield, improve soil quality and soil health, biochar has proven significant role as fertilizer and soil conditioner respectively.

In recent scenario, fluorosis is now going to be a severe problem throughout the globe due to toxic effects of fluoride (F) on both plants, animals and humans. Natural geological sources and increased industrialization have contributed greatly to the increasing incidence of F-induced human and animal health issues. The toxic effects of high doses of F may adversely affect human health by causing skeletal fluorosis, dental fluorosis, bone fractures, the formation of kidney stones, decreased birth rates, weakening of thyroid functionality and impair intelligence, particularly in children. High concentrations of F in soil may seriously threaten the life of plants, devastate soil microbial activity, disrupt the soil ecology and causes soil and water pollution. Hydrogen fluorides (HF) in gaseous form accumulated in the leaves of sensitive plants against a concentration gradient and HF mainly damages the plant by entering into its body in the form of gas and affects a variety of plant physiological processes. In this review we discuss about the effect of fluoride toxicity on plant, human and soil health and its mitigation strategies.

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World population is increasing day by day and at the same time agriculture is threatened due to natural resource degradation and climate change. A growing global population and changing diets are driving up the demand for food. The food security challenge will only become more difficult, as the world will need to produce about 70 percent more food by 2050 to feed an estimated 9 billion people. Production stability, agricultural productivity, income and food security is negatively affected by changing climate. Therefore, agriculture must change according to present situation for meeting the need of food security and also withstanding under changing climatic situation. Agriculture is a prominent source as well as a sink of greenhouse gases (GHGs). So, there is a need to modify agricultural practices in a sustainable way to overcome these problems. Developing climate smart agriculture is thus crucial to achieving future food security and climate change goals. It helps the agricultural system to resist damage and recover quickly by adaptation and mitigation strategies. Sustainable Intensification is an essential means of adapting to climate change, also resulting in lower emissions per unit of output. With its emphasis on improving risk management, information flows and local institutions to support adaptive capacity, CSA provides the foundations for incentivizing and enabling intensification. Since climate smart agriculture is defined along three pillars (productivity increases, building resilience and adapting, and GHG emission reduction), key concepts such as productivity, resilience, vulnerability and carbon sequestration provide indicators for future empirical measurements of the climate smart agriculture concept.