The study of the properties of the Higgs boson is central to the LHC physics program for testing the Standard Model and searching for New Physics signals. Testing the couplings of the Higgs boson to fermions is important for understanding the origin of fermion masses and $H \rightarrow b \bar{b}$ is sensitive to New Physics shifting the relation between the Yukawa coupling and the quark masses. Measurements of Higgs boson decays to quark pairs are dominated by the $b \bar b$ state. Having the largest branching fraction, $H \rightarrow b \bar{b}$ controls the Higgs total width and therefore the branching fraction of all other decays. Through efficient flavour tagging, $H \rightarrow b \bar{b}$ is also the main Higgs hadronic decay channel accessible at the LHC and provides us with the best statistics in Higgs processes with small cross section and in corners of the phase space.
ATLAS has obtained results for $H \rightarrow b \bar{b}$ production in all the main processes: associated $VH$ production, vector boson fusion (VBF) and gluon-gluon fusion (ggF). These results are presented with particular emphasis on the reconstruction techniques adopted in the resolved and boosted regimes and their interpretation in searches for new phenomena. Results for $t \bar{t} H$, $H \rightarrow b \bar{b}$ are presented in another contribution to these proceedings