Date:12/09/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/09/12/stories/2007091260470300.htm

Kerala

VS wants soil in good health

Staff Reporter

Calls for soil health management practices
‘Sensitive eco-systems prone to degradation’

THIRUVANATHAPURAM: Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan has emphasised the need for establishing soil health management support service systems that will enable sustainable utilisation of the soil resources in the State.

Inaugurating a national workshop on ‘soil fertility evaluation for soil health enhancement’ here on Tuesday he said the objectives of soil analytical laboratories must be reoriented in this direction. He said the quality of soil resources were both decreasing and degrading, and productivity in many areas had declined. Unless managed judiciously, the extremely sensitive ecosystems in the State were prone to degradation.

Drastic consequences

When land is degraded, wildlife, plants and people suffer, and it has serious consequences on food security. Soil is confronted with a number of ailments due to over-exploitations and unscientific non-agricultural uses. Once damage is done to soil health, its proper treatment is more costly than preventive measures.

In order to arrest the fast deteriorating soil quality due to loss of nutrients, soil health management practices were to be adopted, the Chief Minister said.

Agriculture Minister Mullakkara Rathnakaran wanted the scientists to work out schemes for providing reliable and scientific data base on fertility status of each piece of land, to the farmers.

Economic policies

Delivering the key-note address Planning Board Vice Chairman Prabhat Patnaik said it was important to integrate supportive economic policies with the technological changes being envisaged in the agricultural sector.

The present agricultural production process in the country needed changes in aspects like irrigation, soil quality upgrading and fertilizer and pesticide application. This was because the production process has plateaued and from 2000 the country was recording zero per cent growth in agriculture sector. But the crisis could be addressed if appropriate economic policies like ensuring easy credit to the farmers and remunerative prices to the crops were also implemented, with technological changes, Mr. Patnaik said.