These soil health cards contain information about a few soil physical and chemical properties and some soil test values for plant nutrients.
I believe the soil health card scheme as being operated in India has hardly any relevance to maintenance of soil health.
Though I have no first hand information on the extent of use of the vast amount of analysis carried out and millions of health cards generated and distributed to the farmwers across whole country, the soil health mission of the Goverment of India created tremedous awreness about soil health in goverment departments,farmers and public in general.I think if this tempo is kept/ maintained and proper guidance is provided by soil scientists and agromists and also the Agricultural Universities pay good attention and take some guiding role ,this soil health mission may help in the restoration and maintenance of soil health over many years to come which may in turn aid in sustainable agriculture and food security of the country.
A national level intense discussion and debate could have helped much better in conceptualizing and evolving the parameters that are inherently linked to maintain soil health.
Dr.Pal,I agree with you that there is need to identify , through discussion, the set of minimum soil health parameters.But story will not end there.The soil testing laboratories should have sufficient facilities to analyze the soil health parameters.The soil testing personnel need proper trainig to analyze the samples for the different health parameters.Before that, they need uniform protocol to collect soil samples and monitoring system for sample collection. Even common protocol is required to analyze the different parameters by over 1000 or more soil laboratories.Quality control/check of analysed samples is needed.There should be a national level soil health assessment and monitoring body/ system.The most important thing is the soil test reports should reach the farmers timely and they should sufficiently be educated/trained to understand the health cards and implement the recommendations.The health cards should be user freiendly.A national level data repository need to be developed to store the vast amount of data generated for mapping and monitoring purpose.Without all these steps we can not expect miracles from soil health cards.
It is a welcome development that GoI is creating massive awareness regarding soil health. Yet I find some flaws in it. First of all it has to be demand driven so that farmers is serious to follow the recommendations given. Second, I am afraid of the quality control in such a massive excercise. People/Agencies involved will be target oriented rather than conscious of quality. I also undrstand that some vested interests like companies marketing sol test kits are making money. I personally feel that wee have to establish some representattive areas ( a watershed for eg) all over the country based on AESR or a level below that and monitor the soil health by an institute like IISS Bhopal in association with SAUs of that region. We need not analyse millions of samples to know what is happening to our soils.
I think it's a good initiative by GoI. Now it's responsibility of ours( Scientific community, Extension Specialist, Research Scholars) to make it more and more popular among the farmers so they can get maximum benefit of this innovative scheme. Regarding benefit of this innovation in term of improved soil health we have to wait may be we will see a good picture in long term.
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