Soil health card scheme – a step towards agricultural sustainability in Punjab

The Union Government in February 2015 had launched the ‘Soil Health Card (SHC) Scheme’ to promote balanced and judicious use of nutrients for harnessing the potential productivity of land. Keeping in view the importance of SHC scheme the present study was undertaken to examine the awareness, level of adoption and impact of application of recommended doses of fertilizers on soil test basis and its impact on income of major crops in Punjab. Primary data were collected from 60 soil-tested and 60 control group farmers from four clusters of villages in Ludhiana and Patiala districts. The results revealed that about 34 to 77% of the farmers were aware about various aspects related to soil testing and SAUs/KVK's were the major source of information about soil testing. Soil testing laboratory was not much far away from the farmer's fields and average area covered under soil testing was 5.83 acres. Also, it was seen that co-operative societies followed by private fertilizer shops/dealers were the major source of fertilizer purchase by sample households. Recommendations about fertilizer use provided in SHC showed that these have been given only for macro-nutrients use in paddy, basmati and maize crops. Farmers mostly preferred higher urea but lower DAP and MOP use in crops sown on their farms as compared to SHC recommendations. Major problems encountered by the respondents in implementing SHC scheme were; less organization of camps, difficulty in understanding the SHC reports and delayed delivery of SHC reports. To make farmers aware about the benefits of soil testing, more farmers training camps be organized along with soil testing campaigns. As far as impact of SHC scheme is concerned, in case of paddy and maize crops, there was slight decline in chemical fertilizer usage especially N and P and increase in K usage in case of paddy and increase in N usage in basmati on soil-tested farms which shows the balanced usage of chemical fertilizers as per recommendation. Also, there was slight increase in the yield in case of paddy, basmati and maize crops on soil-tested farms. The implication is that SHC scheme is a win-win situation for the farmers in terms of decline in fertilizer usage along with increase in crop productivity which can go a long way towards agricultural sustainability in Punjab.