The Department of Agriculture (DA) said President Duterte has approved the National Soil Health Program (NSHP) as part of the government’s goal to attain food security by rejuvenating the country’s degraded soils.
The DA said the program will be implemented from 2021 to 2023 with a budget of P523.57 million.
DA Secretary William Dar said the NSHP will feature four major components: institutionalization of a national soil monitoring and rejuvenation program; establishment of mobile soils laboratory; strengthening of partnerships with relevant agencies and organizations to sustain food security; and the improvement of soil analysis for macro and micro nutrients for the crafting of manuals on the use of physical and biological parameters as indicators of soil health.
“Aside from water, healthy soil is the other key ingredient to attain sustainable crop production… With the NSHP, we now have a science-based framework to rejuvenate our sick soils that will subsequently lead to increased crop harvests and farmers’ incomes,” Dar said.
The DA said as part of the program, a national soil database and monitoring system will be adopted apart from the acquisition of new equipment laboratory facilities and highly-trained technical staff.
Deployment of mobile soils laboratories and training of local government extension workers, farmer-leaders and other stakeholders on the physical, chemical and biological properties of soils will also be conducted.
The NSHP also aims to provide municipal local government units with enhancement of soil test kits that feature all possible properties, physical, chemical and biological indicators of soil health.
