The Telangana Government has tied up with the International Crops Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), and Professor Jayashankar Telangana Agricultural University to help it improve soil health in the State.
Both organisations will help the Government build a skilled workforce capable of conveying the message to farmers across the State.
While ICRISAT held a training session for over 120 farmers and other ecosystem stakeholders on soil health management this week, the agricultural university enrolled over 1,000 volunteers in a capacity-building programme scheduled for Wednesday.
ICRISAT’s programme focussed on equipping farmers with tools, knowledge, and advisory support to improve soil health, optimise input use, and promote crop diversification.
“Advancing soil health depends on capacity building, partnerships, policy alignment, and effective knowledge transfer. Soil health management must move from being a recommendation to becoming a practice at scale. As a critical pillar of the One Health approach, it underpins crop productivity and environmental and human well-being,” Himanshu Pathak, Director-General of ICRISAT, said.
“Achieving this requires strong alignment between science, policy, and field-level implementation, along with crop diversification through the adoption of millets, pulses, and oilseeds,” he said in a statement on Tuesday.
PJTAU Vice-Chancellor Aldas Janaiah said that the University has decided to train over 30,000 soil health volunteers in various aspects of the protection and promotion of soil health. “We will train at least 2-3 volunteers in every village in soil health management over the next two months. They will be trained in conducting soil health tests, preparation of soil health cards and reports,” he said in a separate statement.
Published on April 7, 2026