The menace of land erosion

Soil is virtually a non-renewable natural resource that needs to be guarded at all costs

Consider these dismal facts:
 

• About 120 million hectares, or nearly 37 per cent, of the country’s total land is degraded in varying degrees; much of it due to water erosion.
• On an average, about 1,535 tonnes of soil is lost from every square km land every year due to erosion.
• About 5.37 to 8.4 million tonnes of plant nutrients are also lost annually along with the wasted soil.
• Nearly 13.4 million tonnes of potential crop output, valued at over Rs 205.32 billion at 2015-16 prices, fails to materialise due to land erosion every year.

 
These estimates have been quoted in a policy paper