This Earth Day, as the world reflects on our relationship with nature, India has an opportunity to look down—literally. Beneath our feet lies one of the most critical, yet overlooked, elements of our national resilience: soil.

In the face of a nexus of challenges—climate extremes, biodiversity loss, declining farm incomes, and food insecurity—a shift from fragmented solutions to one that addresses their common root could prove valuable. Restoring living soils represents a powerful strategy to secure rural livelihoods, stabilize the climate, and protect nutrition for future generations.

India stands at the intersection of several urgent global challenges, often approached in silos: climate change, land degradation, collapsing biodiversity, and rising malnutrition. These aren’t disconnected problems—they are symptoms of a deeper ecological crisis: the depletion of soil health.

According to the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), 147 million hectares of land in India are degraded, and nearly 30 per cent of our agricultural soils are classified as severely degraded. In many regions, organic carbon levels have fallen below 0.5 per cent, far below the 3-5 per cent ideal for healthy, productive soil.

The consequences are significant. Crop yields have dropped by 15-40 per cent in affected regions. Input costs increase as farmers apply more fertilizers to compensate for soil........

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