Managing Soil Health for Future

Abstract

Incessant deterioration in soil health continues to be a major concern for sustaining agricultural productivity. A poor soil cannot support high productivity. Any yield gains achieved on such soil owing to varietal or crop management interventions would not only be unsustainable, but would also encourage exploitation of native nutrient reserves, leaving the soil further poorer and more depleted one. With the recognition of the fragility of natural resources, public interest in soil health has increased tremendously throughout the world. The COVID-19 epidemic - one of the most threatening mishap of the recent times, further underlined necessity of maintaining the health of soil and other natural resources so as to ensure food, nutrition and overall welfare of humans and all other living beings. It is, therefore, inevitable to precisely monitor the existing as well as emerging soil health problems under different agro-ecologies, generate pragmatic prescriptions, and convey them in-time to the end-users. There is a need to bring-in precision in soil health assessment and management adopting advanced tools and techniques, and also ensure large scale adoption of the recommendations. Equally important is to enhance awareness of farmers regarding threats of extractive farming practices, as also regarding long-term benefits of investing in soil health improvement. The present article gives a brief account of the current status of soil health and its monitoring infrastructure, and enumerates a few important options/ways to restore and improve soil health in future.