Incentivize the world’s farmers to improve soil health

Source: The post is based on an article “Incentivize the world’s farmers to improve soil health” published in the Live Mint on 21st July 2022. 

Syllabus: GS 1 Salient features of World’s Physical Geography; and GS 3 Ecology and Environment 

Relevance: Soil Health 

News: Recently, ‘Conscious Planet: Save Soil’, a global movement to change the narrative around soil, was launched. 

As part of this movement, the Indian spiritual leader has embarked on a motorcycle journey across 27 countries, covering 30,000 km in 100 days. It was to raise awareness and recommend policy changes that would ensure a minimum of 3–6% organic content in soil everywhere. 

Trends of soil degradation  

For any soil to have agricultural potential, it must have a minimum of 3-6% organic content. However, in large parts of the world, organic content is well below 1%.  

There is not a single country across the world that has soil with a minimum of 3% organic content. In the last 25 years, an estimated 10% of the earth’s land has become desert. 

What are the underlying causes behind such a high level of soil degradation? 

At present, agricultural scientists, universities, and agricultural departments address soil as a ‘material’. They see soil from the perspective like ‘Soil just needs a little more nitrogen, a little more potassium, a little more phosphorus.’ However, they ignore that soil needs living organisms. It is from this microbial life that all other life on this planet has evolved.  

Every year, on an average, 27,000 species in the soil habitat are going extinct across the world.  

What are the possible consequences of inadequate organic content in the soil? 

The United Nations agencies say that there will be no agricultural soil left to grow anything in another 50-60 years because the organic content of the soil is in deep decline 

Over the last 20 years, about 300,000 farmers have committed suicide in India. Further, even in the US, farmers account for the highest number of suicides among all professions.  

Outcomes of the movement 

Many United Nations agencies and Nine Countries have signed memoranda of understanding (MOUs) with Conscious Planet: Save Soil. 

About 74 nations committed themselves to the urgent cause of saving the planet’s soil at the 15th session of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) Conference of Parties (CoP-15). 

What should be done? 

(1) If we want to reclaim soil, it needs to be understood that soil is living, not dead material.  

(2) Every nation could set up 3% organic content as a minimum average for the soil. Further, every government should provide incentives for every farmer in the world to work actively towards a minimum of 3–6% organic content in agricultural soil. 

(3) At the CoP-15 session, a three-pronged incentive scheme for farmers was proposed.  

(a) The government can provide attractive incentives for farmers to aspire to get there.  

(b) Industry and business could facilitate carbon credit systems as a second line of incentives for farmers.  

(c) The third level can be addressed by changing the way food is labeled in consumer markets. The agencies should measure the organic content of the soil. Then, agricultural products grown on tracts of land that have reached 3% organic content should be labeled.