‘Soil loss a threat to food production’

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Agriculture minister V S Sunilkumar cautioned farmers against agriculture practices that affect the health of soil. “There are serious impacts in Wayanad and Kuttanad because of unscientific agriculture practices which harm the soil”, he said while inaugurating the state level celebrations of the world soil day here on Monday.
“The government will take immediate actions for soil conservation for the sake of survival.The basic human needs of water and food are also at stake because of soil degradation”, he said referring to a research finding presented at the conference that said it now takes only 48 hours for the water from the Western Ghats to reach Arabian Sea as the level of soil erosion is high.
In the study, soil conservation department assistant director Anu Mary Philip had mentioned that earlier the rain water used to take a fortnight to travel this distance.
Speaking about the ambitious ‘Haritha Keralam Mission’, Sunilkumar said such initiatives would help achieve goals like environmental protection and soil conservation by uniting the people of the state.
The reports on soil and land resources of five panchayats viz; Mangalapuram (Thiruvananthapuram), Puyapalli (Kollam), Mannar (Alappuzha), Aimanam (Kottayam) and Mukkannoor (Ernakulam) and of twenty watersheds in Ernakulam and Idukki districts were released along with a special postage stamp made in collaboration with the departmant of posts to commemorate the event.
Soil health cards created under the Central Soil Health card Scheme were distributed to selected farmer.
The function was presided by MLA K Muraleedharan. mayor V K Prasanth, planning board vice chairman V K Ramachandran, councillor Palayam Rajan, agricultural production commissioner Raju Narayanaswamy, director of agriculture Biju Prabhakar, director of enviornment and climate change Padma Mohanti, land Use commissioner A. Nizamuddin and director of soil survey and conservation J Justin Mohan were also present.