Firefly Life Sciences, a city-based company specialising in soil health and nutrition management, in a recent report, has emphasised the urgent need to inculcate soil restoration and climate resilient practices into the country’s agricultural policy.
The report titled ‘Soil Restoration and Climate Resilient Agricultural Frameworks to Safeguard India’s Food Security’ argues that soil restoration and climate resilience (SRCR) need to be put at the forefront of India’s agricultural paradigm and policy.
“Soil is fundamental to all living organisms and therefore compromised soil will enfeeble all the organisms and interconnected ecosystems dependent on it. Restoring soil and inculcating climate resilience needs to combine traditional and contemporary knowledge and technologies to create robust agricultural practices that can face up to the rapidly growing environmental challenges,” states the report.
The report also highlights the potential challenges that could arise in moving towards SRCR - namely, lack of knowledge and awareness, high initial costs, market barriers, cultural and social resistance and policy and regulations. Besides suggesting that they need to be considered and accounted for to allow a successful conceptualisation and execution of SRCR.
“The soil degradation crisis has been plaguing India for the past several decades. While the methods ushered in by the Green Revolution helped India attain food security, its excesses have emerged in the decades since. One of the major repercussions of this is soil degradation,” said Nandita Abreo, founder and director, Firefly Life Sciences.
Ms. Abreo added that due to its weakened soil, India’s agricultural production is especially vulnerable to climate change and that this can pose a severe threat to the country’s future food security.
The report also said that true climate resilient farming must account for the trade-offs between the pillars of productivity, adaptation and climate mitigation, and strive to find a context-specific balance between these three core objectives of SRCR.
