Why are govts promoting transformation of nutrients into pollutants?

By A Representative 
Indian soil is battling a silent and losing war. The emphasis on chemical fertilisers during the green revolution and exclusion of parameters like organic matter, carbon, soil structure and water retention capacity has led to severe soil degradation and reduced productivity. 

A conference on “India’s Soils: Science Policy-Practice Interfaces for Sustainable Futures” was held at IIT Delhi which brought together scientists, policy makers and practitioners and helped develop the 3M framework which recognises organic Matter, soil Microbes and soil Moisture retention capacity as the three pillars of restoring soil health. 

It called upon the sciences to acknowledge that soils are a living entity and to revitalize disciplines such as soil biology and soil physics. It recognised the invaluable knowledge of practitioners in restoring soils and the need to incorporate their knowledge into the policy making process. It also argued that soil health is a public good, and it must be addressed systemically at the agroecological level along with supporting farmers at the farm level.
Gopal Krishna from ToxicsWatch Alliance (TWA), talked about larger impact of wastes on soil quality. Interestingly enough, much of technological inputs in waste management process have actually produced another set of non-recyclable wastes. Therefore, waste management as a process has to be addressed through its inter-connectedness with soil, food production and consumption, and health too. 

Policies should cater to increasing proportion of organic matter in waste composition rather than heavy metal. He points out to the fact of inherent contradiction within policies catered to waste management by Indian state. On one hand, it does argue for more organic waste; on the other hand, the recent data shows there is only 28-30% of organic matter and 78.9% of heavy metal in waste composition. The larger goal has to do with waste minimization instead of waste maximization.
In other words, policies should address in increasing the content of organic waste in overall waste composition. One should also address concerns around burning of waste, because it automatically generates another set of toxic waste. Usually, the burning does happen when those category wastes do not get decomposed naturally. The idea of recyclable waste can happen only through farmers’ own knowledge about sustainable use of waste. For more details, visit www.soilsconference2017.com.