India Produces Enough Food. But Is It Nutritious Enough?
When Prime Minister Modi urged farmers last week to halve their use of chemical fertilisers and move towards natural manure, he framed it as an act of economic patriotism: a way to conserve foreign exchange as the West Asia crisis strains India’s import bill. But the soil beneath India’s record harvests has been making the same argument for years, and for far more urgent reasons. India produced more food in 2024-25 than ever before, with food grain output touching 354 million tonnes, up more than 100 million tonnes over the past decade alone. Yet rising output has not translated into nutritional security for large sections of the population. The 2025 SOFI report found that 18.7% of Indian children under five are affected by wasting, while anaemia affects more than half of women aged 15-49. The contradiction is increasingly difficult to ignore. Even as production rises, the quality of the soil sustaining that production is steadily weakening underneath.
India’s post-Green Revolution transformation was rooted in the urgent need for food self-sufficiency. Irrigation expansion, high-yield crop varieties, fertiliser use, and procurement support helped India dramatically increase cereal production and reduce dependence on food imports. But the system that emerged also reshaped what farmers grew and what soils were repeatedly asked to sustain. Procurement and policy support became heavily concentrated around rice and wheat, gradually displacing pulses, millets, and oilseeds from cultivation systems. Over time, this intensified monocropping placed continuous pressure on soil nutrients without equivalent replenishment.
The consequences of that transition did not remain confined to crop diversity. Decades of intensive cereal cultivation, nitrogen-heavy fertiliser use, and declining organic replenishment gradually weakened the biological systems that sustain soil fertility itself.
Healthy soil is more than just a growing medium: it is a living system that cycles nutrients, retains water, and supports plant growth. One of the clearest indicators of this biological health is Soil Organic Carbon (SOC), a measure of organic matter in soil. SOC sustains the microbial activity through which plants absorb and retain nutrients. When SOC declines, yields may remain stable for a period, but the soil’s biological functioning gradually weakens. Its ability to retain moisture, recycle nutrients, and sustain long-term fertility begins to deteriorate.
Soil Health Card data from 2025-26, based on over 93 lakh samples, shows widespread nutrient imbalance across Indian soils. Around 73% of tested samples were low in nitrogen, while significant deficiencies were also observed in micronutrients such as zinc and iron. India’s soil data today reflects a striking paradox. Despite decades of heavy subsidy support for urea, a nitrogen-based fertiliser, nitrogen deficiency remains widespread across Indian soils. Fertiliser policy continues to encourage excessive nitrogen application over balanced nutrient use, while intensive monocropping and inadequate replenishment of organic matter steadily weaken the soil’s ability to sustain itself. The Economic Survey 2025-26 notes that fertiliser consumption in India has become increasingly nitrogen-heavy, diverging from recommended nutrient ratios due to excessive urea application. Over time, this continues to contribute to nutrient imbalance, declining soil quality, and growing dependence on chemical inputs to sustain existing yields.
Soil degradation extends well beyond nutrition: soil organic carbon plays a critical role in water retention. Research shows that a 1% increase in SOC can raise an acre’s water holding capacity by up to 25,000 gallons. For rain fed agricultural systems like India’s, this can make a decisive difference, especially during periods of heat stress and irregular rainfall. As organic carbon declines, soils lose their ability to retain moisture effectively and become more vulnerable to drought conditions. A 2025 Soil and Tillage Research study found that soil organic carbon is among the most important factors shaping how sensitive crop yields are to rising temperatures. The study also found that improving SOC levels can reduce warming induced yield losses, particularly in dryland regions. In states such as Punjab and Haryana, where SOC levels have already fallen to around 0.2 to 0.4 % in several areas, these risks are no longer distant concerns. Declining soil quality also pushes farmers towards greater dependence on chemical inputs to maintain productivity, increasing both cultivation costs and emissions over time.
India is also beginning to show that alternative approaches are possible. Andhra Pradesh’s Community Managed Natural Farming programme, launched in 2016, reached nearly 17.74 lakh farmers across 9.26 lakh hectares and 4,116 gram panchayats in 2025-26. The initiative focuses on rebuilding soil health, reducing chemical dependence, and diversifying cultivation systems. Early research suggests these plots can match conventional yields while reducing input costs and improving farm incomes, though their significance extends beyond productivity. By restoring organic matter and improving soil moisture retention, they attempt to rebuild the biological resilience that decades of intensive cultivation have steadily weakened. In regions where poor soil health and nutritional vulnerability often overlap, these interventions offer an early indication of what soil restoration can look like.
The larger challenge now is whether agricultural policy can move beyond production alone and begin restoring the ecological foundations that production depends on. That includes rebuilding soil organic carbon, correcting nutrient imbalances, and encouraging more diverse cropping systems. It also requires rethinking incentives that continue to favour excessive nitrogen use over balanced soil regeneration. More targeted support for composting, crop residue management, balanced fertilisation, and locally adapted regenerative practices will become essential as climate pressures intensify. The growing attention around soil restoration, whether through Andhra Pradesh’s natural farming efforts or broader initiatives such as Save Soil, reflects a wider recognition that soil health is no longer only an agricultural concern. It is increasingly tied to nutrition, water security, climate resilience, and long-term food sustainability.
In the end, the question is not only how much food India can produce, but whether the soil supporting that production can sustain it over the long term. If soil systems continue losing organic matter and nutrient balance, higher output alone will not guarantee better nutrition or food security.Restoring soil health is not about reversing modern agriculture. It is about ensuring the foundations of agricultural productivity remain ecologically sustainable in the decades ahead.
(Amit Kapoor is chair & Subashini Prakash, Researcher at Institute for Competitiveness. X: @kautiliya).
The article was published with The Hindu Business Line on June 17, 2026.
