Mohali/Punjab:news views post.
As India celebrates advancements in agri-tech and bumper harvests, a silent crisis is brewing beneath the nation’s feet — its soil is dying.
To address this, Soil Yatra, a unique grassroots campaign, has hit the road across Punjab, Haryana, and Himachal Pradesh. With a mobile soil testing van and a committed team, the campaign is going field to field, testing soil, educating farmers, and initiating much-needed conversations about the declining health of farmland.
“Fertile soil is not just a farming issue — it’s a national concern. Without living soil, there is no real food, no future,” says Komal Jaiswal, the founder of Greenaffair and the woman behind Soil Yatra.
The campaign is backed by a strong coalition: IISER Mohali (its incubator), NSRCEL at IIM Bangalore, Punjab Agricultural University, IIT Mandi, and the Punjab State Council for Science & Technology. It has also received support from the RKVY-RAFTAAR innovation grant.
In each village, farmers are offered free soil tests and shown live results highlighting nutrient imbalances, pH changes, and organic carbon loss. More importantly, the team shares regenerative agricultural practices — practical steps farmers can implement immediately to start healing their land.
“This isn’t just about awareness. It’s about action,” says Jaiswal. “We’re showing farmers what’s wrong — and how they can fix it using natural, affordable techniques that protect their yield and the environment.”
So far, the Yatra has covered over a dozen villages in Punjab’s Malwa belt and plans to enter Haryana’s cotton-growing districts next week. In Himachal, it aims to reach apple and vegetable-growing zones where pesticide use has heavily impacted soil structure.
Farmers, often sidelined in policy discussions, are responding with curiosity and concern. “Nobody ever told us our soil is sick. We only knew something was wrong with our crops,” says Gurmeet Singh, a farmer from Mansa district.
Through storytelling, science, and soil — Soil Yatra hopes to shift the narrative. Because healing the earth, they believe, begins with those closest to it.
