In a country like India, farmers have to struggle hard to achieve constant progress in agriculture in spite of their already existing technical and economic problems. Their wellbeing can be improved only if the net income from the farm increases. To ensure their satisfaction and prosperity, the Indian government has started taking steps in favour of their situation.
1. Soil Health Card Scheme
One of the most important among the measures taken is the soil health card scheme. This scheme aims at developing soil tests and balanced use of fertilisers to enable farmers to utilize them judiciously. In this scheme, the government plans to distribute soil health card to 14 crore farmers. Also, the soil is tested in different soil testing laboratories, which are then analysed by experts for various characteristics and the measures to deal with it.
If you are wondering – ‘what is soil health card’, it consists of crop-wise requirement of each nutrient and fertiliser. With this knowledge, farmers will now be able to decide their input of fertilizers more wisely and thus be able to give higher yields with lower cost. If you want to know how to get soil health card, it is available online.
2. Soil health card registration
This is very easy. The farmers need to register on the web portal along with the details of the soil samples. Once registered, they can sign in on the portal using the soil health card login details. The basic objective of the web portal is to create a single national database for soil health.
The process of accessing the portal is very simple and has been planned keeping in mind the literacy level of the farmers living in underdeveloped rural areas. For easy access through smartphones, soil health card app has also been launched.
3. Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana:
This scheme was introduced to promote organic farming by forming groups of at least 50 farmers having 50 acres of land. It promotes the importance of soil and water in agriculture. The government has also started investing in various other schemes like mechanised farming and warehousing.
4. Agroforestry:
This scheme has so far been implemented in 8 states and has various advantages. Agroforestry places its focus on the combination of integration and interaction of different elements, which yield high production and great quality. In fact, agroforestry combined with intercropping can result in the reduction of operational costs.
5. Encouraging Students to Take Up Agriculture
With so many difficulties and issues in a farmer’s life, there might not be a next generation of farmers for us to take forward the responsibility. Therefore, it becomes necessary that students are encouraged to take up this profession.
So, more job opportunities are provided to them to join this sector. One project, which takes this initiative, is the ARYA project. In this plan, the youth in rural areas are empowered to take up agricultural practices.
6. Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana
This scheme aims to prevent farmer suicides, gives them financial support and covers their losses. The unreliable sector of farming brings in too many harsh moments for a farmer. Natural calamities like flood and drought can simply flip their lives upside down in no time. They need to be protected and secured from this unpredictability of nature.
7. Rashtriya Gokul Mission
This mission, introduced in December 2014, aims to improve the productivity of India’s native breeds via professional farm management. It is an intensive project launched under National Programme for Bovine Breeding. It also targets to improve milk production and productivity. It includes the establishment of cattle centres or Gokul Grams near metropolitan cities for housing the cattle.
8. E-Pashudhan Portal
This portal aims at connecting the farmers and breeders of native breeds together. There might not be an authentic market for farmers to sell their breeds and hence this portal will help them achieve it in a very simple way.
There are several measures taken by the Indian government for the welfare of the farmers. However, the national soil health card scheme has proved to be the most efficient till now among all other plans.
The steps taken till now for levelling up the life of farmers were just baby steps because there is a lot that needs to be done so that they live a well-settled and risk-free life. There may be many other problems that they face in their daily routine life and we have no clue about it. The lack of awareness can only be eliminated by knowing and observing them more closely.
