Soil Health Card App, DACF&W

Soil Health Card Scheme is a flagship program of the Government of India promoted by the Department of Agriculture, Co-operation & Farmers Welfare under the Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare. Under the scheme, the government plans to issue Soil Health Cards (SHC) to farmers. SHC provides soil nutrient status of his holding to each farmer and advice him on the dosage of fertilizers and also the needed soil amendments, that he should apply to maintain soil health in the long run. SHC contains the status of his soil with respect to 12 parameters, namely N,P, K (Macro-nutrients); S (Secondary- nutrient); Zn, Fe, Cu, Mn, Br (Micro - nutrients); and pH, EC, OC (Physical parameters).

Soil Health Cards will help farmers to improve productivity by maintaining soil health. SHCs will also promote the judicious use of the fertilizers thus reducing the cost of production for the farmer. The government plans to issue the Soil Health cards to 14 crore farmers in a cycle of 2 years.

Soil Health Card mobile app is being used for registration of soil samples, collected at farm fields and send this information to the national Soil Health Card Portal. Registration requires entry of essential details about Farmer, his Land holdings, crops for which recommendations are sought and fertilizers available or required to improve the health of the soil. Mobile application captures the longitude and latitude of the place automatically where samples are collected thus ensuring authenticity of the sample collection and correctness of the information. Mobile application does not require net connectivity during sample details entry from the fields. Data is stored and pushed on server whenever net connectivity is established. The samples are tested in the labs and the test results are entered by the respective Soil Testing Lab officials.