No soil tests in telangana for two years

Nizamabad: While the government is encouraging farmers to adopt net methods of cultivation and go for new crops so that they can earn good returns on their efforts, at the same time, it has forgotten the basics of any agricultural initiative the soil test to ground its plan.

According to sources, the Central and State governments have suspended soil testing for two years. Previously, soil tests were carried out before the Kharif season when monsoon begin until 2020."Rythu Chaitanya Yatra" is conducted every summer for soil testing and soil samples are collected by the Agriculture department officials from the crop lands.

Similarly, farmers who wanted to do crop diversity would dig holes in their lands up to a yard deep and collect soil on all four sides and hand it over to the concerned Department of Agriculture Soil Test Lab.

After testing the soil samples, the farmers are given a report in the form of "Soil Health Cards" by the agricultural authorities and agronomists. However, soil tests have not been conducted in erstwhile Nizamabad district for two years.

Guidelines have not yet been released

As the Kharif season is approaching, the Telangana government has not yet issued guidelines for soil testing. As many as 2,500 soil samples were taken last year but not tested. Meanwhile, Nizamabad and Kamareddy districts have only three centres to conduct soil tests. According to records, there are ten labs in erstwhile Nizamabad district. Kamareddy AMC SLT used to be a soil testing centre, but it does not exist now. The lab set up at Kamareddy AMC is not working.

Samples were previously sent to the Shradhanandgunj Nizamabad Lab for reports. However, at present the performance of the lab is not satisfactory.

Soil tests that have stalled for two years

The Central government launched the National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture (NMSA) scheme in 2016.Under this scheme, soil samples were collected, soil tests were conducted and soil health cards were issued to farmers. The scheme is to be extended across the country at the rate of two villages per annum. The soil testing scheme continued till 2019.

The collection of soil samples discontinued

In 2018, soil testing kits were also made available to the AEO level officer. At present, AEOs are more focused on online and other work than field level work and are not in a position to focus on soil testing.

"Rythu Vedika" should provide advice and training in cultivation to farmers as well as explain technical issues. In addition, soil samples should be collected for soil testing. However, the government is not taking steps in that direction. As a result, soil testing kits provided to AEOs are rendered useless. Chemicals related to soil tests are also not provided to date. The government has spent Rs 1. 30 lakh for each soil test kit, but now it is not working and the authorities have confined it to the dustbin.

The government has stopped distributing kits to newly recruited AEOs as the kits given to AEOs in the past are not being used.

Government approval is required

So far no guidelines have been received from the government to inform the farmers about soil sample collection, tests and their results in relation to soil tests. We will collect soil samples if government guidelines come up. 2,500 samples were collected for the show last year. If the government allows, we will collect soil samples this year and conduct tests to reveal the result. The lab set up at Kamareddy AMC is not working.