Understanding soil health in practice: Insights from India’s Soil Health Card scheme
Promoting soil health has become a prominent focus of agricultural policy, attracting support from scientists, farmers, environmentalists, and policymakers.
- Soil health
By Ritwick Ghosh, Wei Zhang, Upeksha Hettiarachchi, Francis Phillip, and Ryan NehringAugust 10, 2026
Key takeaways
- India’s Soil Health Card scheme has reached hundreds of millions of farmers but simplified soil health into a limited set of standardized measurements, a study shows.
- Providing information alone was not enough to change farmer fertilizer practices or encourage widespread adoption of recommendations.
- Stronger farmer engagement and local input are needed to make government-led soil health programs more effective.
Promoting soil health has become a prominent focus of agricultural policy, attracting support from scientists, farmers, environmentalists, and policymakers. However, there is much less consensus on what policies can help improve soil health. One problem is that the term “soil health” is conceptually vague, meaning different things to different food system actors. How particular meanings of soil health are incorporated into agri-environmental policies can have important implications for production, livelihoods, and ecosystems.
In a recent article, we explored these questions through an analysis of one of the most ambitious state-led initiatives organized around the concept of soil health: India’s Soil Health Card (SHC) scheme. The program’s national standardization, the study found, may limit its effectiveness and ability to encourage improved, sustainable farming practices.