How can India Scale Soil Health Management for Sustainable Soil?

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Healthy Soil for a Prosperous India

A Roadmap for Sustainable Soil Management

05 December, 2024 | Sustainable Food Systems

Apoorve Khandelwal, Satheskumar Kanagaraj, Sijo Abraham, Parvathy Subha, Gursimer Gulati, Aastha Bafna, Rohan Gupta

Suggested Citation: Khandelwal, Apoorve, Satheskumar Kanagaraj, Sijo Abraham, Parvathy Subha, Gursimer Gulati, Aastha Bafna, Rohan Gupta, 2024.Healthy Soil for a Prosperous India: A Roadmap for Sustainable Soil Management. New Delhi: Council on Energy, Environment and Water.

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Overview

Soil, a critical national asset, underpins 11 of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) but has often been overlooked and treated as a simple "physicochemical bed" rather than as a complex biological entity. India’s soils are in a deteriorating state, with 96 to 120 million hectares already classified as degraded (NAAS 2010; ISRO 2021), and half of the country’s cultivable land is deficient in Soil Organic Carbon (SOC).

The deteriorating soil condition necessitates India to transform its approach to managing this national asset. This Soil roadmap calls for a transformative, multi-stakeholder approach to reverse this decline and scale healthy soil practices. It frames the vision for India’s entire soil to become regenerative by 2047, while supporting biodiversity, nutritional security, climate change mitigation, and sustainable livelihoods.

Co-created through national and regional consultations with 110 regional experts from close to 65 organisations, this roadmap also identifies initiatives and strategies to translate the shared vision into collective action and identifies specific roles for the various stakeholders in the ecosystem.

Key Findings

The Roadmap for Sustainable Soil Management calls for coordinated action across various departments of the union and state governments, Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), research institutes, farmers’ organisations, private sector, development financial institutes, philanthropies etc., to operationalise four key pathways of change: -

Meri Maati Abhiyan (My Soil Mission): Building upon the learnings from successful national movements like the ‘Swacchha Bharat Abhiyaan’ (Clean India Mission), the central government to institute and drive the healthy soil agenda by launching a multi-stakeholder initiative ‘Meri Maati Abhiyaan’ (My Soil Mission).
Making ‘Meri Maati Abhiyan’ a people’s campaign: Make soil action a people's movement to inspire and empower communities to act towards healthy soil.
Recalibrating incentives for value-chain actors to promote healthy soil: Align economic incentives for farmers, CSOs, and the private sector to promote a shared commitment towards healthy soil.
Soil Innovation and Evidence Generation: Foster innovation and regular evidence and learning agenda in soil practices, inputs, funding, and governance to help further effective healthy soil strategies.

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Apoorve Khandelwal

Senior Programme Lead

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“Healthy soil - a critical national asset - is fundamental to India’s nutritional security, growing farmers’ incomes, the resilience of agri-based and bio-economy. Further, Healthy soils are crucial for meeting India’s domestic and global commitments on afforestation and carbon neutrality, and for achieving multiple SDGs. A prosperous India can only be built on healthy soil.”

Executive Summary

Soil - a critical and strategic national asset - is foundational to life. It directly supports our nutritional security, environmental sustainability and livelihood security. Soil health is intricately connected to 11 out of 17 global sustainable development goals1 . Unfortunately, decades of human activity considering soil just as a “physicochemical bed” (as opposed to a “living biological entity”), ignoring its intricate link to biodiversity and ecosystems around it, and focusing solely on reductionist Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) such as yield has led to severe unintended consequences on soil health (Elizabeth T. Alori, Bernard R. Glick, and Olubukola O. Babalola 2017), (Ann Raeboline Lincy Eliazer Nelson, Kavitha Ravichandran, and Usha Antony 2019).

The soil on 96-120 million hectares out of India’s 328 million hectares of land, particularly in forests, croplands and pastures, is already classified as ‘degraded’ (NAAS 2010)(Space Application Centre, ISRO 2021). Besides, about half of the cultivable land in India is deficient in Soil Organic Carbon (SOC), and most soils are low in significant macro and micronutrients (Das et al. 2021). The deteriorating soil condition necessitates India to transform its approach to managing this national asset and scaling healthy soil at speed. As soil health transcends multiple national outcomes, government departments, jurisdictions, and disciplines, the action for soil needs concerted and coherent effort by all.

Recognising the importance of healthy soils, the Indian government has implemented several national schemes such as the Soil Health Card (SHC) Scheme, to provide access to soil data for better decision-making, Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana (PMKSY) to promote water use eficiency in irrigation, Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY) to train farmers in organic farming, etc. The honourable Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has identified a five-pronged strategy for sustainable soil management. It prioritises making soils chemical-free, enhancing soil organic matter, maintaining soil moisture, mitigating the impact of low groundwater, and arresting soil erosion (PIB, 2022).

Co-created with over 110 regional experts from close to 65 organisations via regional consultations across diverse sectors and stakeholders including the government, civil society, private sector, academia, farmers etc., this Roadmap for Healthy Soils in India builds upon the Prime Minister’s foresight. It frames an ambitious shared vision for India's soil, identifies initiatives and strategies to translate the shared vision into collective action, and identifies specific roles for the various stakeholders in the ecosystem.

Indo-German development cooperation project ‘Soil Protection and Rehabilitation for Food Security in India (ProSoil)’ is implemented by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and development (BMZ) in partnership with the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) in the Indian states of Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. The project is part of a larger global programme under BMZ’s Special Initiative “Transformation of Agricultural and Food Systems”.

ProSoil collaborated with knowledge partner e Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW), one of Asia’s leading not-for-prot policy research institutions, for the development and co-creation of this roadmap through extensive consultations.

¹SDGs 1 (End Poverty), 2 (Zero Hunger), 3 (Good Health and Wellbeing), 5 (Gender Equality), 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation), 7 (Aordable and Clean Energy), 9 (Industry Innovation and Infrastructure), 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities), 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production), 13 (Climate Action), and 15 (Life on Land)

The Council uses data, integrated analysis, and strategic outreach to explain - and change - the use, reuse, and misuse of resources. The Sustainable Food Systems (SFS) team at CEEW seeks to catalyse the transformation of India’s food system through a holistic, systems-based approach. The team’s work is guided by the 30-30-30 by 2030 agenda, which envisions a 30% shift in food production towards sustainable approaches, a 30% shift towards sustainable and healthy consumption choices, and a 30% shift in value addition to sustainable supply chains.

Vision and Goals of the National Roadmap for Sustainable Soil Management

The ‘Amritva’ (immortality) of our ‘maati’ (soil) must get rejuvenated in the 'Amrit Kaal'. The roadmap envisions that by the completion of 'Amrit Kaal', i.e., India's vision for development for 2047, India's entire soil - a critical national asset:

becomes regenerative and has a thriving soil biodiversity,
while ensuring nutritional security, climate change mitigation, and sustainable and resilient livelihoods.

It aims to achieve the vision

via concerted and coherent action of multiple stakeholders in the water-land-food-health nexus.
by capitalising on modern science and technology and valuable traditional knowledge.

Adequate baseline data on soil health is crucial to set achievable intermediate milestones as a way forward to the vision and goals of the National Roadmap. Further, given India's agroecological and socioeconomic diversity, the baseline data and the targets must be region-specific.

The roadmap proposes a placeholder interim milestone of achieving 50% of the 2047 target by 2030. This translates to about 131 million hectares (under forest cover, pastures and grazing lands, agricultural land) of regenerative and healthy soil in India. As a preliminary strategy, the proposal is to target 50% of the degraded (~40 mha) and undegraded land (~91 mha2 ) so that the focus is not only on restoring degraded land but also protecting undegraded land and elevating its capability.

Actioning the National Roadmap

As healthy soil influences multiple national outcomes, actioning this roadmap needs coherent effort across various departments of the union and state governments, Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), research institutes, farmers’ organisations, private sector, development financial institutes, philanthropies etc. The following are four key initiatives/pathways, along with the roles of various stakeholders in achieving the shared vision of the roadmap.

Meri Maati Abhiyaan (MMA)

Based on the success of national movements like the ‘Swacchha Bharat Abhiyaan’ (Clean India Mission), the central government may institute and drive the healthy soil agenda by launching a ‘Meri Maati Abhiyaan’ (My Soil Mission). is multi-stakeholder movement will have the following key pathways:

Mainstream action and convergence for soil across relevant government departments: Integrate soil health KPIs into all the relevant departments' mandates, foster coordination across government departments on healthy soil, and enhance soil-related personnel and technological capacities. The roadmap also recommends reporting soil status in the annual national budget to draw adequate attention to this critical national asset among the Pancha Bhuta.
- Proposed stakeholders: Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers' Welfare (MoAFW), Ministry of Jal Shakti (MoJS), Ministry of Animal Husbandry, Dairying and Fisheries (MoAHDF), Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), Ministry of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change (MoEFCC), Ministry of Mines, Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA), respective state governments departments, district collectorates, etc.
Establish soil as a critical national asset and treat 'soil security' as a national issue: Mainstream and expand the natural capital accounting and ecosystem services to include soil health. The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) implemented the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting-Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA EA), which covers soil partially and needs to be actively mainstreamed for policymaking in India. Additionally, inspired by the Water Act of 1974, the roadmap proposes introducing a National Soil Act to safeguard and rejuvenate Indian soil.
- Proposed stakeholders: MoAFW, MoSPI, MoJS, respective state government departments, Members of Parliament, CSOs working on soil agenda.
Enable convergence for soil action between government and CSOs: Build a platform to improve coordinated action on soil health between grassroots organisations and local governments. It will prevent duplication and foster synergies.
- Proposed stakeholders: Local government bodies, Donor agencies, and CSOs.
Procure local and diverse produce in government programmes to enhance crop and soil biodiversity: Procure and distribute ‘diverse’ local produce via mid-day meals, the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) Scheme , the Public Distribution System (PDS), government canteens and railways.
- Proposed stakeholders: Food Corporation of India (FCI), Ministry of Consumer Aairs, Food and Public Distribution, Ministry of Women and Child Development, Ministry of Education (MoE), Indian Railways, and other state government agencies.
Facilitate context-specific technology adoption across India: Improve awareness and accessibility to context-suited technologies and interventions for healthy soil based on the agroecological and socio-economic contexts via adequate capacity building of the extension workers. The establishment of community seed banks can be used to promote the use of indigenous seeds. Lead farmers who are early adopters of sustainable practices may be incentivised to demonstrate context-specific technologies and foster peer-to-peer learning.
- Proposed stakeholders: Research institutions, Farmers collectives, Agri extension workers, Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVKs), National Institute of Agricultural Extension Management (MANAGE), Lead farmers, etc.
Formulate, align, and institutionalise soil health KPIs: To drive consensus on dening "healthy soils" and identifying the relevant indicators to measure it.
- Proposed stakeholders: soil scientists, research institutions, and international organisations.

Making ‘Meri Maati Abhiyaan' a People's Movement

Make soil action a people's movement to inspire and empower communities to act towards healthy soil.

Recognise and create soil champions and promote aspirational ‘Soil Jobs’ in the rural economy: To engage the agricultural community in the MMA, the government can incentivise local practitioners who champion the healthy soil agenda. Furthermore, it is expected to create aspirational jobs such as ‘Soil Stewards’, who become first-mile actors coordinating local efforts between various government departments and CSOs, and championing soil initiatives such as running field experiments, collating best practices, guiding Community Resource Persons (CRPs), creating audio-visual content for healthy soil practices. A Soil Steward in every gram panchayat can generate 2.5 lakh aspirational jobs for the rural youth.
- Proposed stakeholders: Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD), MoAFW, Ministry of Labour and Employment.
Strengthen people's cultural and emotional connection with soil: Instil a sense of belonging and responsibility in communities towards healthy soils via cultural, historical, and inspiring storytelling. It will also inspire the youth to consider farming as an aspirational career option.
- Proposed stakeholders: Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB), Digital Media (Public Broadcast channels like Doordarshan, All India Radio etc.)
Sensitise children and youth on healthy soil: Include educational content on healthy soil, its importance and management in school and college curriculums. Also, enable practical exposure via visits to farmer field schools, for farming and agricultural courses, etc. Additionally, schools and colleges can organise campaigns on healthy soils and empower children to become change agents and ambassadors of soil health, fostering a sense of environmental and social responsibility.
- Proposed stakeholders: MMoE, Schools, Colleges, CSOs.
Strengthen local governance and leadership for bioresource governance and soil action: Embed healthy soil in the mandate of local governance bodies and structures such as the Gram Panchayat Development Plan (GPDP) and Water Security Planning and Biodiversity Management Committee
- Proposed stakeholders: Ministry of Panchayati Raj, MoRD, Village panchayats, CRPs, KVKs, Ministry of Mining, Public Works Department, Union and State Government regulatory bodies.

Recalibrate incentives for value chain actors to achieve healthy soil

Aligning economic incentives for farmers, CSOs, and the private sector to promote a shared commitment towards healthy soil.

Incentivise farmers to adopt healthy soil management practices:Leverage prevailing government support for farmers to encourage and incentivise the adoption of sustainable soil management practices. For example, linking cash transfer (PM KISAN) for healthy soil management activities or targeted direct benefit transfer to farmers reducing the chemical fertiliser use (PM PRANAM scheme).
- Proposed stakeholders: MoAFW, CSOs, Bureau of Energy Efficiency, Insurance companies, Financial institutions.
Incentivise the private sector to promote healthy soils: Institute tax incentives and low-interest loans to incentivise private entities to invest in low-cost soil testing, research and development for equipment design, and innovation in citizen science for soil health mapping. Besides this, market regulators can work with private companies in the food, agriculture, and FMCG sectors to incorporate soil health into their Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) reporting. Union and State Governments can also encourage Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) investments in healthy soil by promoting it as a significant agenda.
- Proposed stakeholders: MCA, MoAFW, Ministry of Commerce and Industries, Corporates, Confederation of Indian Industries, Investors, Advisory and Consultancy firms, Credit rating agencies.
Align philanthropic community to focus on healthy soil: Establish a donor alignment platform for philanthropic organisations to embed healthy soil in their food, agriculture and land-use initiatives.
- Proposed stakeholders: Philanthropies, organisations shaping philanthropic agendas.

Soil Innovation and Evidence Generation

Targeted evidence is critical to guide the scale-up of context-appropriate solutions for healthy soils. Fostering innovation and regular evidence and learning agenda in soil practices, inputs, funding, and governance would help healthy soil strategies be more effective.

Enable data and evidence ecosystem for healthy soil: Develop a national database to capture successful soil management practices, including Indigenous Traditional Knowledge (ITK). It will help disseminate information on practices, techniques, materials, and geographies, with additional features like dashboards for soil priority maps. In addition, relevant government stakeholders can ensure the incorporation of the latest soil data across departments into the Agri Stack to harmonise soil health data in the country.
- Proposed stakeholders: MoSPI, Ministry of Tribal Affairs, Ministry of Panchayati Raj, Research Institutions, Local communities, MoAFW, MoJS.
Establish mechanisms to strengthen knowledge co-creation and exchange between researchers, extension workers, and farmers on soil health: Create Agroecological Learning Centres (ALC) within KVKs to facilitate knowledge exchange regarding soil and agroecological practices. This is expected to enhance bottom-up innovation and promote the adoption of locally suited soil management practices.
- Proposed stakeholders: MoAFW, Extension officers, Farmer Field Schools, KVKs.
Support infrastructure for soil evidence generation: To tailor soil health strategies to local conditions, the government may invest in decentralised soil testing laboratories or Biolabs to provide farmers with quick and varied quality tests on soils, seeds, pest control and water. This can be complemented by capacity building and trainings for farmers and extension workers in soil self assessment using lean methods, such as observing soil self-assessment using lean methods such as observing soil texture, compaction, and fauna presence.
- Proposed stakeholders: Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), MoAFW, Investors, Research institutions, soil scientists, CSOs, lead farmers, extension officers etc.
Support innovation and entrepreneurship towards healthy soils: Dedicated funds from the Atal Incubation Centres (AIC) and privately supported incubation centres is expected to promote innovative services by start-ups working in the field of soil health. These funds can aid entrepreneurs in building scalable and sustainable enterprises, particularly in developing context-relevant inputs, equipment and services for soil improvement, including bio inputs.
Additionally, incentivising research and development for soil-related technology, tools and machines that alleviate human drudgery and reduce labour costs associated with soil health management practices.
- Proposed stakeholders: Investors, Startups, Private sector agencies, and Agri-businesses Indian soils need our attention. This roadmap is the first systematic bottom-up effort to collectively envision and act towards healthy soils in India.

FAQ's

What are the different best practices for scaling healthy soils?

Some of the most popular soil health management techniques being practised across India are - cover cropping, crop rotation, application of organic preparations (Jeevamrutham, Amrithakaraisal), mulching, zero tillage etc.
Why should India focus on Healthy Soils?

Soils directly support our nutritional security, environmental sustainability and livelihood security. Soil health is intricately connected to 11 out of 17 sustainable development goals.
What is the current condition of Indian soils?

- The soil on 96-120 million hectares out of India’s 328 million hectares of land, particularly in forests, croplands and pastures, is already classified as ‘degraded’ (NAAS 2010)(Space Application Centre, ISRO 2021). Besides, about half of the cultivable land in India is deficient in Soil Organic Carbon (SOC). - Three key recommendations for policymakers - Integrate soil health KPIs into all the relevant departments' mandates, procure and distribute ‘diverse’ local produce via government nutrition programmes, embed healthy soil in the mandate of local governance bodies and structures such as the Gram Panchayat Development Plan (GPDP)
What are the different government departments which directly and indirectly impact/work on soil?

More than 12 ministries and other government departments directly/indirectly impact soil. They include - Ministry of Agriculture and Farmer Welfare, Ministry of Rural Development, Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers, Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change, Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation, Ministry of Tribal Affairs, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Ministry of Education, State Procurement Agencies, Ministry of Jal Shakti, Ministry of Labour and Employment, and Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry, and Dairying.