"National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture (NMSA)" will be implemented during 12th Plan with the objectives to make agriculture more productive, sustainable and climate resilient; to conserve natural resources; to adopt comprehensive soil health management practices; to optimize utilization of water resources; etc. "Soil Health Management (SHM – 2015) is one of the most important interventions under NMSA.
It is a scheme first launched in Rajasthan to provide every farmer a Soil Health Card in a Mission mode.
The card will be issued once in every 3 years to a farm so that nutrients deficiency can be regularly detected and improved.
nThe scheme assumes importance as the imbalanced application of fertilisers have caused deficiency of primary nutrients (nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium), secondary nutrients (such as sulphur), and micro-nutrients (boron, zinc, copper etc.) in most parts of country.
¤Promoting organic farming practices etc.
¨Financing: This scheme is being implemented in collaboration with State Governments with 75:25 fund sharing pattern.
¨The Central Government provides assistance to State Governments for setting up Soil Testing Laboratories for issuing Soil Health Cards to farmers.