NEW DELHI: With the global save soil movement heading for its last leg of awareness campaign bringing 74 countries on board, Sadhguru of the Isha Foundation has said it’s now time to handhold farmers both within India and outside to begin actual works on the ground to improve health of the soil by increasing its organic content.
For this, five big states — Gujarat, Rajasthan,
Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra — have already signed MoUs (memorandums of understanding) with the Isha Foundation, while others including Karnataka may do so in coming days, making it the largest such movement where respective governments would work to improve the health of the soil through policy interventions and support.
Though India has a policy in the form of a central flagship scheme of ‘Soil Health Cards’ (SHCs), Sadhguru, who launched the scheme in March this year, felt the scheme needs a little bit of tweaking to ensure enough organic content in the soils.
“You are looking at soil as a resource. But, I am looking at soil as a source of life. As a source of life, it must be kept alive because it’s the foundation of our existence. Now if you are looking at it only in terms of how to use it, then you are thinking let’s throw some more nitrogen, phosphate, etc, and we are done. So SHC should include ensuring a percentage of organic content. Once that happens, then we are moving in the right direction,” said Sadhguru.
In an interview to TOI, Sadhgaru explained how the ongoing SHC scheme is a bit different from what he has been pitching for through the ‘save soil’ movement, and also elaborated on a three-pronged strategy that can bring farmers on board to improve organic content of the soils.
He said, “Right now, the SHC scheme is looking at chemical composition. It means how much nitrogen is present and how much phosphate is present like this, so that they can determine which crop is best grown there. It has some relevance. I am not saying it’s not relevant. But it has to address soil aliveness (the soil organic content) which can determine the soil organism level also.
“The reason why the soil organisms are going down is that they have no food to eat. The only thing they can consume is organic content. They can’t eat nitrogenous salts or phosphate or whatever else you throw. It may work to some extent for the plants. But it does not work for the organism. This is a difference that we must make.”
On the goal of ensuring a minimum 3-6% of organic content for soils, Sadhguru explained that it can be done by making it aspirational for farmers to achieve the minimum threshold of organic content by providing attractive incentives to do so.
“Such incentives would create an aspirational race amongst farmers. It should be noted that there should be a phased programme of implementation over a number of years — with the first phase being that of providing inspiration, followed by a second phase of providing incentives, and eventually having a third phase with some appropriate disincentives,” said Sadhguru.
Bhagavad Gita is the most unusual and the one of the most important scriptures. Its is the divine voice of the God. Bhagavad Gita is the most unusual.