Soil Health and Agricultural Productivity in Cooch Behar District of West Bengal, India: A Critical Review

Abstract

Soil health underpins the agrarian economy of Cooch Behar district, a Terai–Teesta alluvial tract in northern West Bengal where more than four-fifths of the working population depends directly on cultivation. This review synthesises the dispersed literature on soil physical, chemical and biological condition in the district and situates it within the wider body of research on soil health assessment, nutrient management and climate-linked land degradation across the eastern Indo-Gangetic and Brahmaputra alluvial belt. Evidence drawn from soil health card records, block-level soil quality indices and regional arsenic and micronutrient surveys indicates that the district's young alluvial soils, while inherently fertile, are increasingly constrained by declining organic carbon, moderate to strong acidification, imbalanced macronutrient ratios and localised trace element loading. Soil quality indices computed for the twelve administrative blocks of the district cluster in the low-to-moderate range, correlating positively with paddy and jute productivity but revealing marked spatial heterogeneity linked to drainage, groundwater depth and cropping intensity. The review further examines how national soil testing and advisory mechanisms, integrated nutrient management practices and climate variability interact with these local conditions, and it identifies methodological and data gaps that limit a fully quantitative district-level soil health index for Cooch Behar. The discussion closes with priorities for site-specific research, extension design and policy alignment capable of reversing the observed fertility decline while sustaining the rice–jute–maize–potato cropping systems that define the regional economy.