Schemes for Soil Protection and Improvement

The key government schemes for Soil Protection and Improvement are as follows:

Soil Health Card Scheme

Under this scheme, a farmer gets a soil health card which provides vital information about the quality of soil by giving comprehensive information about type of soil, nutrient content, fertilizer required, crop suitability to ambient temperature and rainfall condition. It also carries crop-wise recommendations of nutrients / fertilizers required for farms in a particular village, so that the farmers can improve productivity by using inputs judiciously.

In its first phase, 100 million Soil Health Cards are distributed to farmers between 2015-2017.

Under this scheme, Central Government provides assistance to State Governments for setting up Soil Testing Laboratories for issuing Soil Health Cards to farmers. A Soil Health Card mobile App was also launched to help the farmers. The GPS based soil sample collection has been made compulsory and online registration of samples and test results are uploaded on the National Portal of the Soil Health Card.

National Project on Soil Health and Fertility

This scheme is for setting up Soil Testing Laboratories (STL) / mobile STLs/Fertilizer Quality Control Laboratories (FQCLs) and their strengthening for paving the way for judicious use of chemical fertilizers. Soil Health Management is aimed at promoting location as well as crop specific sustainable soil health management including residue management, organic farming practices by way of creating and linking soil fertility maps with macro-micro nutrient management, appropriate land use based on land type. This scheme also includes the Soil Health Cards scheme which provides information to farmers on soil nutrient status and recommendation on appropriate dosage of nutrient to be applied for improving soil health and its fertility.