Pic courtesy: Mongabay-India
Researchers at the University of Sheffield in 2014 found that soils in urban areas in UK were healthier on an average than the intensively-farmed crop lands. Gardens, local parks and allotments generally were significantly more nutritious carrying 32 per cent more organic carbon, 25 per cent higher nitrogen and 36 per cent higher carbon to nitrogen ratios. The garden soils were also less compacted.
The study was led by Dr Nigel Dunnett, who had then warned: “With a growing population to feed, and the nutrients in our soil in sharp decline, we may soon see an agricultural crisis.” The team warned that the sick farm soils in UK are left to sustain only about 100 crop harvests. In fact, the problem that afflicts future food security is not only limited to UK, but is global in reach. The UN Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) estimates that if the current rate of degradation continues unabated, the world’s top soil would disappear in another 60 years. Aware that soils are the foundation for all civilizations, but with soil fertility declining to almost zero in intensively-farmed regions, with more of chemical fertilizer and pesticides usage turning the soils toxic, and with excessive drawing of groundwater sucking even deep aquifers dry, desertification is fast creeping.
In India, which hosts the 14th Conference of Parties (CoP) to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, in New Delhi, nearly 30 per cent of the country’s land – more than 4 times the size of UK – has been degraded due to deforestation, intensive farming, soil erosion and groundwater depletion, collectively leading to desertification. Such is the decline in soil fertility that I am sure the gardens and local parks in the urban areas in India must be more healthy and nutritious than the cultivable lands. Further, continuous application of chemical fertilizers along with mechanized farming has turned the soils compact. Agricultural Universities are aware of the formation of a hard layer that has formed almost a feet below the surface thereby restricting the spread of plant roots and also obstructing the seepage of water to the ground.
Unfortunately, the universities have been recommending more of chemical fertilizer application as the way forward to address nutrient deficiency in exhausted soils thereby further compounding the crisis. But this will hopefully change after the Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his Independence Day address appealed to farmers to shift from chemical fertilizers and follow more of natural farming techniques in crop cultivation. We can’t blame the farmers; after all they are following the package of practices recommended by the agricultural universities and state agricultural extension machinery. To ensure that farmers make a shift to non-chemical practices, the first and foremost task would be to reduce fertiliser subsidy. Already studies have shown that 1 per cent reduction in fertiliser subsidy reduces land degradation by 3 per cent.
Since the Prime Minister has now spoken about the dire need to protect soil health, preserve underground water from contamination, and to provide for a healthy food chain, I am sure agricultural universities and extension agencies have got the right message to shift to integrated non-chemical farming practices. But this is easier said than done. Universities are not immune to stubborn resistance from agribusiness lobbies. Perhaps the best way forward is to directly transfer the fertiliser subsidy into farmers account but not link it to fertiliser usage and instead allowing him to use it for organic manures, composting etc. The best indicator for a good and healthy soil is when the organic matter in soils grows at a pace that the percentage of earthworms increases manifold.
The latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) entitled ‘Climate Change and Land’ has specifically mentioned intensive cultivation, including draining of wetlands for bio-fuel cultivation (and this includes ethanol from sugarcane), to be a predominant reason for growing land degradation. It says the cultivable soils are being lost at a rate 100 times faster than it is being formed. In India, a study by The Energy and Resource Institute (TERI) shows that nearly 1.4 per cent of GDP is lost to degradation of forests alone. It estimates the annual loss accruing from land degradation and land use change at Rs 3.17-lakh crore, roughly 2.5 per cent of country’s GDP. At a time when a cash transfer of Rs 1.76-lakh crore from the Reserve Bank of India to the government is being seen as a big financial support, the loss from degradation of forest lands needs to be properly evaluated.
Although India has pledged to restore 5 million hectares of degraded land by 2030 so as to become a land degradation neutral country, what is worrying is the rate at which deserts are fast encroaching. Desertification is no longer confined to the semi-arid regions encompassing Rajasthan, Haryana and to some extent in Telangana but is fast expanding to Jharkhand, Gujarat, Goa and Delhi where the spread is almost 50 per cent, says an ISRO report. Besides Punjab, Odisha and Tamil Nadu, desertification is also expanding in the hill states of Jammu and Kashmir as well as in Arunachal Pradesh. At the rate at which drought is getting widespread and frequent, more and more areas are coming under its fold.
Add to it the rate of deforestation – 1.6 million hectares of forest cover lost since the year 2000 – and according to IndiaSpend felling of 10 million trees has been allowed between 2000 and 2015, the threat of expanding deserts is too serious to be lost in claims and pledges. While any interference in eco-sensitive zone and protected areas must stop, efforts must be also put in place to ensure that cultivable lands are not allowed to further degrade. In fact, a time-bound programme needs to be launched to reclaim degraded arable lands. A lesson can be drawn from China which has promised to save at least 124.33 million hectares of its arable lands from any further degradation, and at the same time protect 53.3 million hectares out of it in a high-quality, by 2020.
I see no reason why India cannot do the same. Faced with rapid urbanisation, India too needs to demarcate a significant proportion of its 159.7 million hectares of arable land in a healthy condition, and bring at least 70 million hectares under top quality parameters by 2022. But for this ambitious target to be achieved, India will have to protect soils the way it protects tigers. #
Protect soil health to curb land degradation. The Tribune. Sept 9, 2019
https://www.tribuneindia.com/
Protect soil health to curb land degradation. The Tribune. Sept 9, 2019
https://www.tribuneindia.com/
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