Soil pollution leads to the degradation of the quality of soils and decrease in the crop-production. At times especially due to excessive erosion the entire area is turned into wasteland unsuitable for cultivation. Some pollutants have long life of survival and enter the food chain so as to adversely affect the human health. Even animals and birds neither are nor spared from the ill effects of the deadly pollution.

Soil is a necessary ingredient of the life sup­port system. Hence, utmost care should be taken to prevent its degradation and pollution. Since chemi­cal fertilizers and biocides are largely responsible for causing soil pollution, there is a need for their judicious and controlled use.

These should be gradu­ally replaced by biofertilizers and environment friendly natural biocides, insects and pests etc. Ur­ban and industrial effluents should be used for irri­gation after due treatment. Urban bodies and indus­trial establishments should be forced to install pollu­tion treatment/control devices. Farmers should be imparted knowledge about the proper use of fertillizers and scientific land use practices and methods of soil conservation and controlling soil erosion.

There is urgent need to restrict the use of plastics and devote more attention on scientific researches to reclaim degraded and polluted soils.