India's Soils: Science - Policy - Practice: T Vijay Kumar, Advisor, Govt of Andhra Pradesh

India’s soils are battling a silent and losing war. The emphasis on chemical fertilisers during the green revolution and exclusion of parameters like organic matter, carbon, soil structure and water retention capacity has led to severe soil degradation and reduced productivity.

The DST-Centre for Policy Research IIT Delhi, Revitalising Rainfed Areas Network (RRA), WASSAN and Shiv Nadar University organized a conference on “India’s Soils: Science Policy-Practice Interfaces for Sustainable Futures” that was held at IIT Delhi from February 26-28, 2017. For more details, visit www.soilsconference2017.com.

The conference brought together scientists, policy makers and practitioners and helped develop the 3M framework which recognises organic Matter, soil Microbes and soil Moisture retention capacity as the three pillars of restoring soil health. It called upon the sciences to acknowledge that soils are a living entity and to revitalize disciplines such as soil biology and soil physics. It recognised the invaluable knowledge of practitioners in restoring soils and the need to incorporate their knowledge into the policymaking process. It also argued that soil health is a public good, and it must be addressed systemically at the agroecological level along with supporting farmers at the farm level.

Summary of T Vijay Kumar's Remarks:

T. Vijay Kumar, Advisor, Government of Andhra Pradesh concluded thediscussion by emphasizing the need for looking at agriculture with a climate change resilience lens—the National Mission on Sustainable agriculture brings this perspective. There is a need to draw upon the work done by the UN, FAO and others—we should not have programs that go counter to them. We need to correct the way we are looking at soils. For soil testing, as well, there are global standards and global practice. He stressed that research efforts should be directed towards unexplored avenues. One needs to learn from the outliers who are turning to agriculture. He acknowledged the ideas put forth by natural farming practitioner, Bharat Bhushan Tyagi that people turn to agriculture if it comes across as a profitable activity, even if on a part time basis. There is a need to create jobs in agriculture for growth to take place in agriculture. He emphatically concluded that farmer distress is a shameful thing and the persons who are feeding us should not die.