Soil Health Card: A Govt. Scheme for the Welfare of Farmers and Agriculture

Posted by Mohit Sethi on May 14th, 2019

o increase the productivity of the crops across the farmlands, farmers must focus on the health of the soil and its fertility. In order to carry out sustainable farming, it is important to have a requisite amount of fertilizers that can aid soil fertility in the long run.

To mitigate the issue, the Government of India launched a scheme called Soil Health Card in 2015, which is issued to every farmer in order to provide nutritional soil status of farmland and offer useful advice, which may help improve the current health of the soil, thereby improving the amount of produce that it produces.

Soil health card proves to be helpful for farmers who are not aware of which plants can grow best on the type of soil that they have in their farmland. Hence, it becomes very important for the government to educate farmers so that they can receive the maximum output from their hard work.

What Does the Soil Health Card Stand For?

Soil Health Card aka SHC is nothing but a soil quality report in a printed format. The report basically comprises of the farmer’s lands and holdings. It also includes the current status of the soil, which is assessed with respect to 12 parameters i.e. Macro-nutrients - which include N, P, K, Secondary nutrient - which includes S and Micronutrients - which include Zn, Fe, Cu, Mn, Bo as well as pH, OC, and EC. It also talks about the fertilizers, which should be added to the soil to improve its health.

How to Make Proper Utilization of SHC?

The SHC primarily has an advisory board, which assesses the nutrient status of the soil and gives proper recommendations about the fertilizers and nutrients, which the soil requires to provide a better yield. The SHC is issued once every three years.

The soil samples are collected by the State Government of the respective states two times every year. The samples are collected only after harvesting Rabi and Kharif crops such that there is no issue of a standing crop in the middle of the assessment. The government charges around 190 Rupees for every soil sample. This cost includes testing, sampling, generation and distribution of SHC based on the primary findings.

Overall Benefits of an SHC Scheme

With an SHC aka Soil Health Card scheme, any farmer can avail a plethora of benefits. If the farmers adhere to the guidelines laid down by the advisory board, then these recommendations will positively aid them in scaling their productivity. With this scheme, the farmers can easily decide what type of crop can help them attain more benefits.

The main authorities who have been appointed under this scheme will be constantly monitoring the soil quality and will generate a report every 3 years, which would then be shared with the respective farmers. Additionally, under this scheme, the Government of India has appointed some professionals who will be there to support the farmers in adopting remedial techniques to improve the crop yield.

Hence, SHC is helpful to farmers who can eventually make necessary plans to improve the yield of the crops and improve the health of their soil. Under the SHC scheme, the same expert is mapped to a farmer who can do a continual analysis of the soil. This makes the scheme a lot more effective and makes communication between the experts and the farmer more streamlined.

Although there have been cases wherein the soil of a particular area is not that effective for crop harvesting, proper measures can be taken to improve the soil health. Doing so will ensure that the farmers don’t waste their money and effort and can make the best use of their land.

Also Read: Latest Indian Government Schemes for Welfare