Soil Conservation in India has become one of the prime concerns of the Government of India, as it is getting eroded with time, which in turn is adversely affecting agriculture in the country. Land provides food, fuel, fodder and shelter to the mankind besides supporting secondary and other economic life supporting system. However, there has been an incessant exhaustion of land resources. As a result the quality of land is deteriorating with passing decades due soil erosion. Soil Conservation is the process of preventing the loss of characteristics of soil. Soil Conservation is very important in India because, it takes nature almost 600-1000 years to build 2.5 cm of topsoil but this very topsoil can get displaced in a year due to misuse, as a result it is becoming the harmful single factor in the deterioration of productive land.

Need for Soil Conservation
Soil Conservation is of great importance in the widespread regions of low and uncertain rainfall, in the Indian states of Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. Scanty, unevenly distributed and highly erosive rains, surging topography and high wind velocity adds to the soil erosion. Generally shallow soils are seen in these areas. The period of heavy rainfall from August to October is the period of the heaviest erosion in these regions. Wind erosion has been acutely responsible for destroying the precious topsoil in many Indian states. An extreme example of sand movement from the coast is to be seen in the Saurashtra region of Gujarat where the once-flourishing ports are now covered with advancing sand dunes. Large areas in all parts of the country have been rendered useless as a result of soil erosion and areas which suffer from moderate or slight erosion and whose productivity is reduced as a result of soil losses are very much larger still.

Soil Conservation in Rural Areas
Soil Conservation is especially important in rural India, where the erosion of the cultivated fields, ignored pastures and wastelands, considerable roadside erosion to a great extent takes place owing to the defective highway engineering. Defective drainage and water logging harm fertile areas and make them unfit for cultivation every year and indirectly increase the erosion hazards. Soil conservation in rural area in its widest sense includes not only control over erosion but all those measures like improvement of soil defects, application of manures and fertilizers, proper crop rotations, irrigation, drainage etc. In this sense, soil conservation is very much associated to the improvement of land use in general.

Methods of Soil Conservation
Soil Conservation refers to retain extensive vegetation on the soil. Vegetation is the protective cover against the forces of wind and water, which protects the soil from being washed or blown away and preserving the physical and hydro-graphic balance of nature. Forests, for instance, provide the most effective protection against erosion on hill slopes. They break the force of run-off by impeding the flow of rainwater down the slopes and by absorbing large quantities of it in their dense mat of undergrowth.

Trees are the prime medium of soil conservation; they act as windbreaks, reducing the force of the wind, and the grasses bind the sandy soils. Destruction of trees and natural grasses in dry areas has similar harmful effects. Large areas in the bordering areas of deserts are thus rendered infertile by the deposition of sand. Soil Conservation measures are specially started in areas like the forests of Assam, Bihar, Orissa and Madhya Pradesh, shifting cultivation, which is practiced by the tribal people living in these areas, is a major cause of destruction of forests. Afforestation and preservation of forests by scientific forest management and improvement of land use practices on farm lands are some more ways of soil conservation practiced in India. This includes such measures as ploughing along the contours and strip-cropping on sloping lands; proper crop rotations; application of adequate manures and fertilizers; taking care of fallows and other unfarmed lands. Certain engineering measures are also adopted for soil conservation.

Steps for Soil Conservation
Steps for conservation of soil have been taken for the past few decades in states like Punjab (afforestation activities in the Shivalik Hills) and Mumbai (binding and terracing work in the Deccan area). More recently, soil conservation work has been initiated in several other States also. But there has been no countrywide effort at an accelerated rate so far, and even in states where the work has been going on, this has been on a very limited scale. Land Utilisation and Soil Conservation Board control the programmes for soil conservation and improvement of land use. These programmes are based on an assessment of the erosion problem in the state after a rapid survey of the land investigation.

Soil Conservation Society of India is devoted to the cause of development and conservation of the soil, water and associated resources of plants and animals since foundation. Currently, J.S. Gill (CCS Retd.) is the Chief Patron and A.K. Sondhi (CCS) is the President of the Soil Conservation Society of India.