About the scheme

• The Soil Health Card (SHC) scheme is promoted by the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare to provide information to farmers on nutrient status of their soil along with recommendations on appropriate dosage of nutrients to be applied for improving soil health and its fertility.
• Launched in 2015, it is being implemented through the Department of Agriculture of all the State and Union Territory Governments. 

Constituents of a Soil Health Card

• SHC is a printed report that a farmer will be handed over for each of his holdings.
• It will contain the status of his soil with respect to 12 parameters, namely N, P, K (Macronutrients); S (Secondary- nutrient); Zn, Fe, Cu, Mn, Bo (Micronutrients); and pH, EC, OC (Physical parameters).

• SHC will be made available once in a cycle of 3 years, which will indicate the status of soil health of a farmer’s holding for that particular period.
• The SHC will also indicate fertilizer recommendations and soil amendment required for the farm.

Benefits of Soil Health Card 

• Soil Health Card help the farmers in the following ways:

1. The report generated through soil health card scheme encourages judicious and balanced use of fertilizers.
2. The report card also suggests use of bio fertilizers, micronutrients and organic manures to increase soil fertility.
3. Farmers training and demonstrations on farmers fields, under the scheme creates awareness among the farmers to increase soil fertility.
4. The SHC will monitor the soil of the farmers well and will give them a formatted report. So, they can decide well which crops they should cultivate and which ones they should skip.
5. The authorities will monitor the soil on a regular basis. So, farmers need not worry if the nature of the soil changes due to certain factors and also they will always have updated data about their soil.
6. Apart from listing down measures required to improve the quality of the soil, experts are also employed to help farmers in carrying out the corrective measures.

Why in the news?

• The Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare conducted an awareness programme about the Soil Health Management (SHM) scheme.

Reference:

1. https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=Soil+Health+Management+%28SHM%29+scheme.