Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s pet project, the soil health card scheme, has started showing results. While the cost of production has come down by 10 to 25 per cent, the average farm produce has gone up by 10 to 66 per cent, the Agriculture Ministry said.
The response of 136 districts in 16 states where soil health cards were introduced in 2016 showed an increase in production of paddy by 10 to 25 per cent, coarse cereals by 10 to 15 per cent, pulses by 10 to 30 per cent and oil seeds by 35 to 66 per cent, said an Agriculture Ministry official here on Friday.
The production cost of crops has also gone down. “There has been 16 to 25 per cent reduction in the cost of paddy farming and 10 to 15 per cent reduction in pulses and oil seeds farming,” the official said.
Another interesting pattern that has come to light is that the consumption of nitrogen fertilisers has decreased considerably while consumption of phosphorus, potash and micro-nutrients has increased, the official said.
The soil health card scheme was introduced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in February 2015 to improve soil fertility, bring down unnecessary use of fertilisers and reduce production cost. The card provides information to farmers on nutrient status of their soil along with recommendations on appropriate dosage of nutrients for improving soil health and its fertility.
It also gives information about the nature of the soil, and suggests which fertilisers and chemicals should be used for a particular crop. In the first two-years (2015-17) of the scheme, 2.53 million samples were collected and so far 93 per cent samples have been tested. About 14 crore soil health cards are being created by the state governments and till 31 May they were distributed among eight crore farmers. In the next three months, the rest of the farmers would also receive their soil health cards.