Minister opens 32 soil testing centres to promote scientific farming

Patna: State agriculture minister Ram Kripal Yadav on Thursday inaugurated 32 sub-division level soil testing centres in the state through remote control to promote farming activities based on the soil health of the land and to discourage the indiscriminate use of chemical fertilisers, as it leads to soil degradation and a consequent fall in both crop production and land productivity.The function in this regard was held at Krishi Bhavan, Mithapur (Patna), from where he also inaugurated 12 custom hiring centres from which farmers can hire agricultural equipment for specific farm activities. Besides, he inaugurated the digital agriculture directorate located at Krishi Bhavan.Regarding the soil testing centres, Yadav said, “Their main aim is to provide soil testing facility to the farmers, so that they can adopt scientific farming on the basis of soil health of their land.

It would help them practise farming activities by using organic fertilisers, which contribute to maintaining soil health. Indiscriminate use of chemical fertilisers should be abandoned, as it leads to soil degradation, while healthy soil helps in augmenting crop production and increasing land productivity, too.

”He said the custom hiring centres are located at the state quality seeds production centres — Bhabhua, Dhanarua, Nawada, Khiriyawan, Sipaya, Piprakothi, Pusa, Halsi, Sikandra, Odehara, Kumarkhand and Bualdah — one each in 12 different districts.

Each custom hiring centre has 25 types of farm equipment for use by farmers from villages located in the vicinity of the 12 quality seeds production centres.The digital agriculture directorate would engage in providing benefits from govt schemes to farmers in real time and also conduct digital crop surveys. The data base would be used for estimating crop coverage as per the cropping seasons (kharif, rabi), besides crop production and land productivity. The directorate would also take innovative measures for crop management on the basis of data. Farmers would be given digitised soil health cards.