Indian Farmer Story — Soil Lost its potential
Soil in India has evolved a lot in the recent years. Through our previous encounters with farmers and conversations with them, it is clear to us that the quality of the produce depends a lot on the the quality of soil. In order to make their soil more effective, farmers use fertilizers.
“I know my farm is not blessed with the right kind of soil. For every crop I cultivate, I depend on fertilizers. But many a times, the fertilizers aren’t provided on time which results in starvation of my family”, says a farmer from Haryana.
Almost every farmer in the nation depends on fertilizers to enhance the growth of their produce. There are two types of nutrients that fertilizers provide to the soil. Macro nutrients (primary and secondary) and micro nutrients.
Macro nutrients include Nitrogen (N), Phosphorous (P) and Potassium (K). Secondary macro nutrients include Calcium (Ca), Magnesium (Mg) and Sulfur (S). Micro nutrients include Copper (Cu), Iron (Fe), Manganese (Mn), Molybdenum (Mo), Zinc (Zn) and Boron (B).
There are many classifications even further. But again the problem here is unawareness. Farmers follow a traditional approach in selecting fertilizers. The soil has to be tested to determine the type and amount of fertilizers that need to be added.
In most of the villages, availability of fertilizers is the biggest problem faced. The fertilizers provided by the government often go out of stock and the farmers return bare hands after travelling a lot of distance to reach the government fertilizer store.
This frustrates the farmers and forces them to buy fertilizers from a private store. The cost of the fertilizers is higher in the private stores when compared to that of a government fertilizer store.
Also, the government store is usually located in a place where people from all nearby villages can come and collect the required. These places are far away from most of the villages and farmers have to travel a lot to reach these places.
There is a need of informing the farmers about the availability of fertilizers and seeds in the stores. If farmers are being informed about fertilizers running out of stock or availability of new stock, a lot of time can be saved.
Information services have the ability to revolutionize Indian farming and bring huge impact in the quality of farmer lives. A positive thought is all it takes.
Do you think a common man can change the fate of the nation?
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This story was originally published in the official FarmGuide blog on 12th December, 2017.
