Long term policy needed to protect soil health, says Sadhguru

Expressing concern over soil health deterioration, Isha Foundation founder Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev on Sunday said that countries should make long-term policies to deal with the crisis.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi agreed with our view on the urgent need to make policies to protect soil health, he told the media here. He said that a food crisis is impending and collective efforts are needed to address the situation.

Sunday also marks the 75th day of Sadhguru’s 100-day lone motorcycle journey for soil across 27 countries. The movement, to date, has touched 2.5 billion people while 74 countries have agreed to act to save their nations’ soils.

The journey started on 21 March from London and he entered India on May 29.

Over 15 lakh children in India have written to the Prime Minister as well, requesting him to take action to save the nation’s soil and their collective future said a statement from Isha Foundation.

The Save Soil Movement, launched as part of the spiritual leader’s Conscious Planet initiative, is aimed at turning the world’s attention toward dying soil and growing desertification.

The focus is on getting countries to institute national policies toward increasing the organic content in cultivable soil.

Sadhguru expressed that for a solution to be realized, all citizens must stand up and support the long-term initiatives required of the government to address this. “Whether we want to ensure food security for the nation, enhance farmers' income, enhance biodiversity and bring back aliveness into our soil, Save Soil is very important.”

"The primary objective of the Save Soil Movement is to urge all nations of the world to mandate a minimum of 3-6% organic content in agricultural soils through urgent policy reforms. Without this minimum organic content, soil scientists have warned of the imminent death of soil, a phenomenon they are terming ‘soil extinction," he said.