Soil Health Management

Soil Health Management

Subject: Government Schemes

Context : On the occasion of inauguration of the National Conference on Soil Health Management for Sustainable Farming Union Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Minister, Shri Narendra Singh Tomar said that  more than 22 crore Soil Health Cards have been distributed to farmers across the country.

Concept : 

• To promote natural farming, the Central Government has approved the National Mission on Natural Farming as a separate scheme with an expenditure of Rs. 1,584 crores, Shri Tomar said.
• Under the Phase-I (2015-17) of the scheme, 74 crore cards were distributed, while under the Phase-II (2017-19), 11.69 crore cards have been distributed.
• Infrastructure development is also being done by the Government under the Soil Health Management Scheme, in which there is a provision to set up different types of Soil Testing Laboratories.

National Mission on Natural farming

• National Mission on Natural farming aims at creating institutional capacities for documentation and dissemination of best practices, make practicing farmers as partners in promotion strategy, ensure capacity building and continuous handholding and finally attracting farmers to the natural farming willingly on the merit of the system.
• National Mission on Natural Farming will be a demand driven programme and states shall prepare a long-term perspective plan with year-wise targets and goals.
• As per the budget announcements, area falling under the 5 km corridor on either side of river Ganga will be accorded highest priority, followed by area which are rain-fed & traditionally low or no fertilizer input users or default Natural Farming areas.
• Such category of areas is generally confined to hilly, tribal, high forest land districts and remotely located districts which due to other compulsions are low agro-chemical usage areas.
• Once the technology and practices are established and validated the mission goals will be spread to other areas and states.

About Soil Health Card Scheme

• Soil Health Card (SHC) scheme is promoted by the Department of Agriculture & Co-operation under the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare.
• An SHC is meant to give each farmer soil nutrient status of about 12 nutrients of his/her holding and advice him/her on the dosage of fertilizers and also the needed soil amendments, that s/he should apply to maintain soil health in the long run.
• SHC is a printed report that a farmer will be handed over for each of his holdings.
• It will be made available once in a cycle of 2 years, which will indicate the status of soil health of a farmer’s holding for that particular period.
• The SHC given in the next cycle of 2 years will be able to record the changes in the soil health for that subsequent period.
• Under the programme as of date, soil health cards have been distributed to about 23 crore farmers.
• The scheme has not only helped in improving the health of the soil, but has also benefited innumerable farmers by increasing crop production and their incomes.

Soil Health Management Scheme

• Setting up of new soil laboratories are done under Soil health management scheme under National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture (NMSA).
• It provides 75% Assistance of total project cost to State Govt. subject to a maximum limit of Rs. 56 lakh.

Theme of the World soil day

• World Soil Day is celebrated every year on December 5.
• WSD 2022, with its guiding theme, ‘Soils: Where food begins’, is a means to raise awareness on the importance of maintaining healthy soils, ecosystems and human well-being by addressing the growing challenges in soil management, encouraging societies to improve soil health, and advocating the sustainable management of soil.