Photo Source: Babushahi Bureau
Farmers and agri-experts take part in interactive session on soil health
ICAR's Dr Ahlawat says Viksit Bharat can be achieved only by developing agriculture integrated with global markets
Babushahi Bureau
Chandigarh, September 4, 2024: A farmers’ meeting-cum-interactive session was held to deliberate on 'Soil biological health and cultivation of quality food as per international standards'.
Experts stated that the soil condition in Punjab has deteriorated, and yields are declining, leading to excessive use of chemical fertilizers. It was informed that in the year 2008, Punjab Agriculture University published a report on soil health condition where it was mentioned that NPK use efficiency has reduced to 20 per cent. Every kilogram of NPK produced 80 kg grains in 1966-67, which declined to 16 kg by 2023.
A session was also held on the role of Compressed Biogas (CBG) projects in improving soil health. Under the CBG projects clean energy is produced from bio waste.
Dr Arvind Ahlawat of Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), New Delhi, who is head at KVK Abohar, said, “Under GOI’s Viksit Bharat mission an ambitious plan has been initiated to take agricultural exports to a value of Rs. 100000 crore. ICAR is actively promoting safe food cultivation and CBG projects will be an important link between farmers and exporters. Viksit Bharat can be achieved only by developing agriculture integrated with global markets.”
Dr Ahlawat further said: “Soil biological health is essential for reduced use of chemicals and producing quality food while maintaining yields acceptable in international markets. Punjab produces close to 50 million tons of biomass, which is either burnt or wasted. Utilizing this resource, to produce high quality fermented manure will be a good long-term policy to rejuvenate our agriculture.”
Sanjeev Nagpal, an expert in sustainable agricultural practices and Director, Sampurn Agriventures said, “Under the Green Revolution program to grow more food, it was decided to introduce chemicals along with high yielding seeds with mechanized farming, but soil biology was ignored. Today India is surplus in food, but farmers are in a distressed condition loaded with debt. Our food is deficient in nutrition value and 50 per cent Indians are suffering from nutrition deficiency. India imports food supplements worth $ 4.5 billion.”
Nagpal further said, “As per the recommendations manure was to be used along with chemical fertilizers. But unfortunately, manure was defined in terms of NPK. Therefore, farmers stopped using manure and started using excessive chemical fertilizers. Biological health of soil must be preserved for sustainable agriculture,” he added.