{"id":33737,"date":"2022-12-04T03:20:11","date_gmt":"2022-12-03T21:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=33737"},"modified":"2025-04-20T01:08:06","modified_gmt":"2025-04-19T19:38:06","slug":"over-exploitation-over-centuries-has-degraded-96m-hectares-of-indias-land","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/over-exploitation-over-centuries-has-degraded-96m-hectares-of-indias-land\/","title":{"rendered":"Over-exploitation over centuries has degraded 96m hectares of India\u2019s land"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><strong>What\u2019s in today\u2019s article?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Why in News?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>About land degradation<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Attempts to halt further degradation and restore degraded land\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Why in News?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>As World Soil Day (WSD) 2022 arrives on December 5, over 29% (96.4 million hectares) of India&#8217;s entire geographical area (328.7 million hectares) is degraded, with the level of degradation in terms of soil fertility reaching 40% globally.<\/li>\n<li>WSD 2022, with the guiding theme &#8220;<strong>Soils: Where Food Begins<\/strong>,&#8221; aims to raise awareness about the importance of maintaining healthy soils, ecosystems and human well-being.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What is land degradation?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Land degradation is the deterioration or<strong> loss of the productive capacity of the soils<\/strong> for present and future.<\/li>\n<li>It is a global challenge contributing to a dramatic decline in the <strong>productivity of croplands and rangelands worldwide, <\/strong>affecting everyone through <strong>food insecurity, <\/strong>climate change and the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/lh3.googleusercontent.com\/fh5nnX5K-ASj1J0VEkh41WSZq1gPzN2Pn49n0qm6iKmPtllgsxFNggBd16HbMeD4J6UJ897ZHbxIhV0g87z6Wg9sAwNs4tVmyKPiERYmD7r7Kc4nPwlKjNYqIDCqEKrkYiL7B2RsyWq9TUKqNT8MIg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Image Caption: Soil degradation Scenario in India and the world<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Reasons for the large land degradation in India: <\/strong>Over-exploitation of land through unsustainable farming practices, mining and deforestation over the centuries.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Threats: <\/strong>If the current trends continue,\n<ul>\n<li>It would disrupt food supply and lead to <strong>rapid biodiversity<\/strong> loss and species extinctions in this century itself.<\/li>\n<li>The world\u2019s topsoil could<strong> become unproductive within 60 years<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Attempts to halt further degradation and restore degraded land:<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Bringing life to soil through regenerative\/restoration practices:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>This includes <strong>nature-positive food production<\/strong> in rural landscapes and greening the urban areas through planting trees and protecting vegetation.<\/li>\n<li>These can also enhance the world\u2019s ability to cope with drought, floods, wildfires, sand storms and pollution linked to dust.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Zero budget natural farming (ZBNF):<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Restoring soil fertility by regenerating organic content and microorganism is one of the key components of the whole land restoration exercises.<\/li>\n<li>The ZBNF guides the farmers towards sustainable farming practices, which helps not only in retaining soil fertility but also ensuring low cost of production and thereby enhancing the farmers income<strong>.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What are global efforts to curb land degradation?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Under a <strong>UN Convention<\/strong>, the countries have already agreed to restore one billion hectares of degraded land by 2030 by achieving <strong>land degradation neutrality <\/strong>(LDN).<\/li>\n<li>Under LDN, the quantity and quality of <strong>land resources stay steady or increase<\/strong>, taking into account degradation and restoration. If a country achieves LDN, there will be <strong>no net loss in terms of land degradation.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What are Indian efforts to curb land degradation?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The Government of India is implementing <strong>a five-pronged strategy<\/strong> for soil conservation, including,\n<ul>\n<li>Making soil chemical-free,<\/li>\n<li>Saving soil biodiversity,<\/li>\n<li>Enhancing SOM,<\/li>\n<li>Maintaining soil moisture,<\/li>\n<li>Mitigating soil degradation and preventing soil erosion.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>India has been working to restore 26 million hectares of degraded land throughout the country by 2030 and voluntarily pledged to achieve LDN by 2030.<\/li>\n<li>India is currently pitching for <strong>fertilizers\/pesticides-free ZBNF<\/strong> and <strong>soil health cards<\/strong> (SHC) scheme informs farmers of the status of soils, providing a ground for multiple actions for restoring soil fertility.<\/li>\n<li>The <strong>Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana<\/strong> prevents soil erosion, regeneration of natural vegetation, rainwater harvesting and recharging of the groundwater table.<\/li>\n<li>In addition, the <strong>National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture<\/strong> (NMSA) has schemes promoting traditional indigenous practices such as <strong>organic farming and natural farming<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>The FAO is collaborating with the &#8211;\n<ul>\n<li>National Rainfed Area Authority and the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers\u2019 Welfare to develop forecasting tools to make informed decisions on crop choices.<\/li>\n<li>The Ministry of Rural Development, supports the Deen Dayal Antyodaya Yojana-National Rural Livelihoods Mission\u2019s (DAY-NRLM) Community Resource Persons to increase their capacities.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3><strong>Q1) What is land degradation neutrality?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>According to UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), land degradation neutrality is the state in which value of land providing economic and ecosystem services remains constant or increases over a period of time.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Q2) What is meant by desertification?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Desertification is the degradation of land in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas. It is caused primarily by human activities and climatic variations. Desertification does not refer to the expansion of existing deserts.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Land degradation is the deterioration or loss of the productive capacity of the soils for present and future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":33738,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-33737","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-mains-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33737"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33737\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}