Sustainable agriculture: soil health, climate and farming for the future

Sustainable agriculture aims to produce food and incomes over the long term without degrading the soil, water and ecosystems on which farming depends. Intensive cultivation, heavy fertiliser and pesticide use, stubble burning, groundwater depletion and monocropping have raised short-term output in many regions but weakened the resource base. Soil organic matter has fallen in intensively farmed areas, micronutrient deficiencies affect crops and human nutrition, and polluted runoff harms water bodies. Sustainability is therefore not an abstract environmental goal; it is a condition for future yields.

Soil health is central. Balanced fertiliser use, based on soil testing rather than blanket application, crop rotation, legumes that fix nitrogen, organic matter from compost and farmyard manure, and conservation practices such as mulching and minimum tillage can rebuild soil structure and fertility. The Soil Health Card scheme, launched in 2015, supports this shift, but changing fertiliser habits is difficult when urea is heavily subsidised relative to other nutrients, encouraging imbalanced use. Nutrient-based subsidy reform, which tries to price nutrients more evenly, aims to correct this distortion, though it must avoid raising costs for small farmers abruptly.

Climate change adds urgency. Rising temperatures, changing monsoon patterns, more frequent droughts, floods and heatwaves, and new pest pressures threaten yields, especially for rainfed farmers without irrigation or insurance. Adaptation includes drought- and flood-tolerant varieties, diversified cropping, agroforestry, water harvesting, weather advisories and crop insurance, while mitigation includes reducing methane from paddy and livestock, improving nitrogen efficiency and avoiding stubble burning through machinery and alternative uses for residue. India's nationally determined contribution under the Paris Agreement includes creating additional carbon sinks through forestry, which links farm and forest policy.

Natural and organic farming, promoted through schemes such as Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana, launched in 2015, attracts interest for lower input costs and premium prices, but yields, certification costs and market access limit scaling, and evidence on large-scale productivity remains debated. For civil studies, sustainability requires weighing trade-offs honestly: practices that protect soil and water may lower yields in the short term, and farmers cannot bear transition costs alone. Public support, research and markets that reward sustainable produce must share the cost of a transition that benefits society as a whole.