The Crisis Beneath Our Feet
A quiet crisis is unfolding across India’s agricultural heartlands. It is estimated that nearly 30% of the country's land is degraded. Decades of intensive farming, driven by the pressures of the Green Revolution, have led to an over-reliance on chemical
fertilisers and water-intensive practices. This has stripped our soils of essential organic carbon and micronutrients. In many areas, soil organic carbon has fallen below the critical level of 0.5%, a steep decline from the healthy range of 1-1.5%. This degradation makes farmland less productive, more prone to erosion, and less able to hold water, increasing vulnerability to droughts and floods.
Why Healthy Soil Matters
Healthy soil is more than just dirt; it is a living, breathing ecosystem. Rich in organic carbon, it acts like a sponge, retaining water and making farms more resilient to erratic weather. This organic matter is crucial for nutrient cycling, ensuring that plants have a steady supply of food. Soils with high organic carbon content also support a diverse community of microbes that can suppress plant diseases, reducing the need for chemical pesticides. Furthermore, healthy soil is one of our greatest allies against climate change, sequestering vast amounts of carbon from the atmosphere and storing it safely underground.
Current Policies: A Flawed Framework
India has several programmes aimed at soil health, such as the Soil Health Card (SHC) scheme and the Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana (PKVY) for organic farming. The SHC scheme, one of the world's largest soil observation programmes, has created a massive database and, where recommendations are followed, has been shown to reduce fertiliser costs by 8-10% and increase yields by 5-6%. However, its real-world use lags behind its technical potential due to implementation gaps and a lack of farmer trust. Schemes like PKVY and PM-PRANAM are steps in the right direction, promoting organic practices and alternative nutrients. But the broader policy landscape, especially heavy subsidies on chemical fertilisers like urea, often works at cross-purposes, incentivising quantity of inputs over the quality of the soil.
A New Blueprint: Rewarding the Stewards
The solution lies in a paradigm shift: directly rewarding farmers for being stewards of the land. Instead of just subsidising inputs, policies should be designed to pay for positive ecological outcomes. This could take several forms. A premium price, perhaps 10-20%, could be offered for produce grown using verifiably sustainable methods, linked to existing frameworks like the Participatory Guarantee System (PGS) for organic certification. Another powerful tool would be creating a robust market for soil carbon credits, allowing farmers to earn income for sequestering carbon. This would turn a climate solution into a direct economic opportunity for millions. The government can lead by linking a portion of MSP or other direct benefit transfers to the adoption of practices like no-till farming, cover cropping, and crop rotation.
The Tangible Benefits of a Shift
The benefits of such a policy reorientation would be transformative. For farmers, it means reduced dependence on costly chemical inputs and greater resilience to climate shocks, leading to more stable incomes. For the nation, it means enhanced food security, cleaner water, and a significant contribution to our climate goals. Regenerative practices improve water retention, recharge groundwater, and reduce soil erosion. By investing in our soil, we invest in the long-term productivity of Indian agriculture. It is a transition from a system that extracts value from the land to one that regenerates it, ensuring that our farms can continue to feed the nation for generations to come.
