Soil health and its relationship with food security and human health to meet the sustainable development goals in India

Abstract

Healthy soil is critical to human health and for achieving sustainable development goals (SDGs). Although India attained self-sufficiency in food production, realising zero hunger, good health, and no poverty remains a challenge. In this paper, we summarize key features of Indian soils and capture existing and developing trends in soil research in India to assess our preparedness to meet soil-linked SDGs. We begin by taking a stock of Indian soils, their nutrient status, and soil quality and explore some of the rapidly emerging areas of soil research to realize this goal. Given that the average soil organic carbon (SOC) content is around 0.54%, the majority of Indian soils are low in major and micronutrients. Large-scale soil testing in farmers’ fields suggests that more than 70% of soils suffer either from soil acidity or soil alkalinity. With about 29% of the total geographical area under the process of land degradation, deficiency of several plant nutrients is showing malnutrition in Indian population. Smallholder farms in India need new agricultural technology and their efficient delivery to farmers. Over the last decade, there have been ambitious Government programmes such as national soil health card mission and rapidly changing agricultural research ecosystem to promote smart sensing, robotics, remote sensing to name a few. The realization that farmers are to be associated with soil research and development, as is done in soil health card mission and public-private partnership such as Bhoochetna, sets in a new trend to enable the country and its citizens self-reliant.