Dr Harold van Es, President of American Society of Soil Science and professor of soil science & water management at Cornell University, USA said healthy soils were essential for better human and animal health because water quality and nutrient availability in farm crops were very much dependent on soil health.
Prof Harold was addressing the two-day international workshop on ‘Soil Health’ organized by Birsa Agricultural University (BAU) in collaboration with Cornell University on Tuesday. He said soils of America and India were different but improvement and management techniques were the same. Soil health could be built by adding supplies of organic materials like manures, cover crops, reducing losses of organic matter, keeping soil surface covered with living and diverse vegetation and residues, minimizing tillage intensity and maximizing surface cover etc. Proper attention was required on all aspects of soil health management- physical, chemical and biological, he added.
BAU Vice Chancellor Dr George John, who chaired the session, said we have been disrespectful to soil since long but the mother earth has been forgiving. The ambitious Soil Health Card (SHC) Scheme launched by the Union Ministry of Agriculture is probably the world’s largest programme aimed at improving soil health but SHC is only a medical prescription and would not serve the purpose unless medicines (nutrients) as prescribed are taken in proper dose, George added. “BAU is keen to have long term association with Cornell University for soil health management,” the VC said.
lectures delivered by Cornell University scientists included ‘Report on soil samples analysed’ by Phil Frost, ‘Solutions to improve soil health in Indian sub-region’ by Peter Hobbs, and ‘Geographical Information System (GIS)/ Remote Sensing (RS) and data management for ongoing soil health management’ by David Rossiter.
Dr DK Shahi, chairman, department of soil science & agricultural chemistry, BAU said soil was a living and life giving natural resource. Food grains production would have to be doubled to feed the projected population of 2050 and it could be possible with improved soil health only.