Opinion: The quiet crisis beneath our feet
We must stop seeing soil as inert ground to be exploited and start seeing it as a living, breathing partner in our collective survival
By Viiveck Verma
It doesn’t make headlines. It doesn’t stir the same public outrage as polluted rivers or dying forests. But beneath our feet, quite literally, lies one of the gravest and most under-acknowledged environmental crises of our time — soil degradation. It’s slow, silent, and insidious, and yet, its consequences are seismic.
Without healthy soil, there is no food security, no sustainable agriculture, no climate stability. And in India, where agriculture still sustains nearly half the population, this silent erosion of our most fundamental resource is nothing short of catastrophic.
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Living Ecosystem
Soil is not just ‘dirt’. It’s a living ecosystem, a biological engine teeming with bacteria, fungi, and insects, many of which remain undocumented. A single teaspoon of fertile soil contains more microorganisms than there are people on Earth. These organisms are the invisible architects of life: cycling nutrients, retaining water, and capturing carbon. But modern agricultural practices, driven by short-term gains and subsidy-fueled imperatives, are decimating this fragile, complex web.
India’s Green Revolution of the 1960s and 70s, often celebrated as a turning point in food production, came with a toxic legacy. High-yielding seed varieties required heavy chemical inputs, synthetic fertilisers, pesticides, and water to deliver promised results. For a country that had faced recurring famines, it was a miracle. But over the decades, the price of this “miracle” has become painfully evident. Soils, once rich and loamy, are now depleted, acidic, or salinised. Organic carbon — the indicator of soil health — is declining at an alarming rate across Indian farmlands. Punjab, the poster child of the Green Revolution, is now facing a terminal soil crisis. The irony is bitter.
Global Scenario
Globally, the situation is no better. According to the United Nations, about 33 per cent of the Earth’s soils are already degraded, and over 90 per cent could become degraded by 2050 if current trends continue. Desertification is swallowing once-arable land across Africa and Asia, while intensive monoculture farming in the United States and Europe has left vast stretches of farmland dependent on chemical lifelines.
Soil erosion, often accelerated by deforestation, urban sprawl, and climate change, now causes the loss of up to 50,000 square kilometres of fertile land each year, land that took millennia to form. And the consequences are not confined to farms.
The UN’s “4 per 1000” initiative, which aims to increase soil carbon by 0.4 per cent annually, is promising, but it lacks teeth without binding commitments
Soil degradation has a direct impact on the climate. Depleted soils release stored carbon into the atmosphere, turning former carbon sinks into carbon sources. Conversely, healthy soils can lock in carbon, regulate temperature, and buffer against floods and droughts. It’s no exaggeration to say that solving the climate crisis is impossible without addressing the soil crisis. And yet, soil rarely enters our climate policy conversations in any meaningful way.
There’s also a profound social dimension. Soil degradation disproportionately affects smallholder farmers, many of whom operate on the margins. In India, these farmers are often trapped in a vicious cycle — poor soil yields poor harvests, which leads to higher debt, forcing further intensification of land use. Over time, this not only depletes the land but also destroys livelihoods, accelerates rural distress, and fuels migration to urban centres already bursting at the seams. In this context, soil degradation isn’t just an ecological issue — it’s an economic and humanitarian one. So, what’s the way forward?
Restore and Regenerate
First, we need to fundamentally reframe how we value soil. As with clean air or safe water, healthy soil must be treated as a public good — something that benefits everyone and therefore demands collective stewardship. Government policies should stop incentivising extractive farming and start rewarding regenerative practices. Programmes like crop rotation, agroforestry, conservation tillage, and organic composting aren’t sexy, but they work—and they’re scalable.
India, to its credit, has begun to recognise the magnitude of the problem. The government’s Soil Health Card scheme, launched in 2015, was a well-intentioned step toward promoting soil testing and balanced fertilisation. But implementation has been uneven, and follow-up support to farmers is often lacking. What’s needed is not just data, but real support systems: training, access to organic inputs, and a shift in procurement policies that favour sustainable crops over water- and chemical-intensive ones.
The private sector and civil society must also play a role. Several startups in India are now offering AI-based solutions for soil monitoring, while grassroots movements like Zero Budget Natural Farming in Andhra Pradesh are showing that it is possible to farm profitably without harming the soil. But these efforts need to move from the periphery to the mainstream. Tech and tradition must converge if we are to reclaim our land.
Internationally, a more unified approach is required. Soil degradation knows no borders, and yet, global frameworks like the Paris Agreement have not given soil its due place. The UN’s “4 per 1000” initiative, which aims to increase soil carbon by 0.4 per cent annually, is promising, but it lacks teeth without binding commitments. Soil must be placed at the centre of global food, climate, and development strategies.
Ultimately, addressing soil degradation requires a cultural shift as much as a technical one. We must stop seeing soil as inert ground to be exploited and start seeing it as a living, breathing partner in our collective survival. This means reimagining our education systems, urban planning, economic models, and food systems through the lens of soil health.
As custodians of the land, our responsibility is not merely to extract from it, but to restore and regenerate it. If we fail, the ground beneath us, both literally and metaphorically, will continue to slip away. But if we act with urgency and imagination, the solution to some of our most complex crises might just be right under our feet.
(The author is founder and CEO, Upsurge Global, co-founder, Global Carbon Warriors and Adjunct Professor, EThames College)
