A research group based in India is urging the Department of Agriculture to embark on a massive soil rejuvenation program, which promises to bring back soil health and increase crop yield by at least 20 percent.
“We need a major strategy to bring back soil health. Our soils are sick and overused from various activities like mining,” said former Agriculture Secretary William Dar, who is now director general of non-profit group International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid-Tropics (Icrisat).
Dar said the DA, through the Bureau of Agricultural Research, had committed P100 million for the program for 2013. But a formal agreement between Icrisat and the DA has yet to be signed, Dar said.
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