Soil Health Card Cuts Fertilizer Use by 10 Percent: Study

According to a study conducted by the National Productivity Council (NPC), the application of Soil Health Card recommendations has led to a drop of 8 to 10 percent in use of chemical fertilizers as well as raised the productivity by 5 to 6 percent.  

It must be noted that the Soil Health Card scheme was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014-15 to deal with the decline of soil nutrients. In the 2nd phase of the scheme, around 11.69 crore Soil Health Cards have been given to farmers in the last 2 years. Farmers were able to understand the soil health parameters and boost output by judicious use of soil nutrients.

Also during the Soil Health Card Scheme Phase-I (2015 to 2017), 10.74 crore cards were distributed to farmers and under Phase-II (2017 to 2019), 11.69 crore cards were distributed.

In the current financial year, a pilot project ‘Development of Model Villages’ has been started where sampling & testing of cultivable soil is being encouraged in association with growers. A Model Village has been selected in this project, for aggregation of soil samples & analysis of all agricultural holding. As part of the initiative, 13.53 lakh Soil Health Cards have been distributed in 2019-20.

In order to set up soil health laboratories under the scheme, the states have been approved 429 static labs, 102 new mobile labs, 1562 village-level laboratories, 8752 mini labs & strengthening of existing 800 labs.

Under the scheme, State Governments does an analysis of soil composition once in every 2 years so that corrective steps can be taken to improve soil nutrients. Growers can track their soil samples and also get full soil health card report.

Youth & farmers up to 40 years of age are eligible to establish soil health laboratories and do the testing. Cost of a laboratory is Rs 5 lakhs and 75 percent of the amount can be funded by the central & state governments.