SOIL HEALTH CARD SCHEME

 

Soil Health Card Scheme


By- Anshika Rani

Soil health scheme or SHC with the tagline of ‘Swasth Dharaa Khet Hara’ (healthy earth, green farm) was launched by PM Narendra Modi on 19 February 2015 (the international year of soil) from Suratgarh, Sriganganagar, Rajasthan, and is promoted by Department of Agriculture & Cooperation under the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmer’s Welfare.

A soil health card is a detailed printed report which gives the farmer’s a soil nutrient report of his/her holding and advices them the amount of fertilizers that should be used to maintain the soil and get optimal yield. This report is predicated on 12 parameters, i.e., N,P,K(macro nutrient); S(secondary nutrient); Zn, Fe, Cu, Mn, Bo (micro nutrient) & pH, Electrical Conductivity, Organic Carbon (physical parameters).

The samples required for testing are generally taken twice a year after harvesting of the rabi & kharif crops in a grid of 2.5 Ha in case of irrigated areas & 10 Ha in case of rainfed areas with the help of GPS tool and revenue maps. The soil is collected from a depth of 15-20 cm by cutting the soil in a “V” shape, from four corners and Centre of the field. The cost of the whole procedure from collection of samples to distribution of SHC to farmer is Rs. 190/ sample.

Objectives Of Soil Health Card Scheme :

  • To strengthen functioning of STLs through capacity building, involvement of agriculture students & effective linkage with ICAR & SAUs
  • To diagnose soil fertility-based constraints
  • To develop and promote nutrient management based on soil tests.
  • To issue Soil Health Card to all farmers in every 3 years and collect 253 lakh samples/ cycle.

Features of Soil Heatlth Card :

  • The SHC is prepared in 14 languages.
  • SHC  mobile app languages: 10 ( 23 languages in SHC portal)
  • The total budget assigned is Rs. 568 crores
  • The cost of intervention is shared as 75:25 b/w central & state govt.
  • The ‘Development of Model Village Programme’ were also taken under SHC during FY 2019-2020.

Advantages :

  • SHC prepared in cycle-1 (2015-2017): 10.74 crores: cycle 2 (2017-19): 11.69 crores distributed.
  • The SHC Scheme is generating employment in rural youth by permitting village youth and farmersup to 40 years of age to set up Soil Health Laboratories and conduct testing.
  • According to the NPC, the SHC scheme has led to a decline of 8-10% in the use of chemical fertilizers and also raised productivity by 5-6%.

Drawbacks :

  • Farmers are unable to understand the content due to lack of education, hence unable to follow the recommended practices.
  • It doesn’t take important factors into consideration such as soil variability, microbial activity, moisture retention, slop of soil, its colour and texture, cropping history etc.
  • Lack of communication among agricultural extension officers and farmers.
  • The soil health card is more focused on chemical nutrient indicators and not physical and biological indicators.
  • Incompetency of soil testing infrastructure.
  • The lack of funds, the centre has released only Rs. 200 crores from the allotted fund
  • Under this system, only one soil sample is taken from an area of 10 hectares in rain-fed land, and 2.5 hectares in irrigated land, but in India, the average landholding per farmer varies between 0.8 hectares and 1.1 hectares.

Conclusion:

  • There should be designated body to keep a check on progress.
  • Awareness campaigns should be launched to educate farmers about the SHC contents.
  • Other important parameters that affect soil health should also be included.
  • Communication gap between extension officers and farmers should be resolved.

 

 

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