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Strengthening Soil Health
Context:
A well-balanced soil-nutrient profile is essential for enhancing crop yields and maintaining soil productivity. However, soil health deterioration remains a major challenge in India.
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- The existing fertiliser subsidy system, which places heavy emphasis on urea, has led to an imbalance in nutrient application—resulting in excessive nitrogen use and insufficient supplementation of phosphorus and potassium.
- According to the Fertiliser Statistics Report, the NPK use ratio in 2021-22 stood at 7.7:3.1:1, a significant deviation from the ideal 4:2:1 ratio.
- Overuse of nitrogen at the expense of essential micronutrients and organic manure has not only diminished soil fertility over time but has also contributed to nutrient runoff and groundwater contamination.
Soil Health Card Scheme
It is a flagship initiative by the Government of India, launched in February 2015, to improve soil fertility and productivity by providing farmers with detailed information about their soil’s nutrient status.
Objectives:
- Soil Quality Improvement: Enhance soil health and fertility to increase crop productivity and profitability for farmers.
- Employment Generation: Create employment opportunities for rural youth through the establishment of Village Level Soil Testing Labs (VLSTLs).
- Sustainable Practices: Promote balanced and integrated nutrient management practices to ensure long-term sustainability of soil health.
Key Features:
- Objective: The primary goal is to promote soil test-based and balanced use of fertilizers, enhancing soil health and crop productivity while reducing costs for farmers.
- Implementation: The scheme is implemented across all states and union territories, with soil samples analysed every three years to provide farmers with actionable insights.
- Soil Parameters: The scheme assesses 12 critical soil parameters, including Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Potassium, pH, and micronutrients like Zinc and Iron.
- Benefits: It helps farmers make informed decisions about fertilizers and soil management practices, leading to better yields and profits. It also promotes sustainable farming by reducing the use of chemical fertilizers.
- Technological Integration: The scheme has been enhanced with technological interventions, including a revamped portal integrated with GIS and a mobile application for easier access and monitoring.
Soil Health Card Scheme
- In an effort to address land degradation and promote balanced fertiliser use, the Soil Health Card (SHC) Scheme was introduced.
- Having recently completed a decade, the scheme has played a crucial role in providing farmers with personalised soil-health assessments and fertiliser recommendations.
- So far, over 247 million SHCs have been distributed nationwide, and 8,272 soil-testing laboratories (STLs) have been set up, including 665 village-level soil-testing labs (VSTLs) across 17 states.
- These decentralised labs enable farmers to access testing facilities closer to their farms, ensuring timely and accurate soil analysis.
- Further, the initiative has been extended to educational institutions through the School Soil-Health Programme, with 1,020 schools participating and more than 100,000 students enrolled.
- Additionally, technological advancements such as geospatial soil mapping and the SHC mobile application—which links soil sample locations with their test results—have further strengthened the initiative.
- The Soil and Land Use Survey of India has completed soil mapping across 29 million hectares, covering 40 aspirational districts, which could significantly enhance precision in soil analysis and land-use planning.
Challenges in Implementation
- STLs require proper infrastructure, skilled personnel, and financial support, but many laboratories struggle with staff shortages and inadequate facilities, leading to inefficiencies.
- Additionally, delays in delivering soil test reports and low adoption of SHC recommendations by farmers hinder the scheme’s overall effectiveness.
Role of Agritech and AI in Soil Testing
- To address these challenges, innovative agritech solutions, particularly AI-enabled portable soil-testing kits, can prove highly beneficial.
- These kits require minimal training, can be used directly in the field, and provide rapid results.
- A notable example is the “KRISHI-RASTAA Soil Testing System”, an Internet of Things (IoT)-based automated soil-testing platform that can analyse 12 key soil parameters within just 30 minutes.
- This system, jointly developed by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research-Indian Institute of Rice Research (ICAR-IIRR) and agritech startup KrishiTantra, exemplifies how emerging technologies can make soil testing more accessible, scalable, and cost-effective for farmers.
