DHAKA, Dec 04, 2019 (BSS) – The World Soil Day-2019 will be observed in
the country as elsewhere across the globe tomorrow highlighting the
importance of healthy soil.
The theme of this year’s day is ‘Stop Soil Erosion, Save Our Future’.
The World Soil Day (WSD) is held annually on 5 December as a means to
focus attention on the importance of healthy soil and advocate for the
sustainable management of soil resources.
On the eve of the day, President M Abdul Hamid and Prime Minister Sheikh
Hasina issued separate messages greeting all concerned, including the
officials of the Ministry of Agriculture and wishing all programmes of the
day a success.
The President, in his message, urged all to maintain the purity of soil
as it is the most critical component of nature saying it is time that people
should move towards nature and organic farming and learn to protect the
purity of soil in the country.
He said in addition to energy and life-saving materials, soil is the
main tool to protect the ecology.
As Bangladesh has achieved mentionable success in agriculture, the
president hoped that everyone would continue their collective efforts in
sustainable development of the country to build the ‘Sonar Bangla’ dreamt by
Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, in her message, said the soil has enormous
contribution towards crop production and biodiversity.
The present government has achieved the Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs) with the utmost efficiency in various sectors, the premier said.
“We have made tremendous progress in agriculture, which has grabbed the
attention of the global community. The strength of crop cultivation along
with food production of the country has increased several times,” she added.
She said the government is working relentlessly to achieve the
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to maintain the existing developments of
the agriculture.
An international day to celebrate Soil was recommended by the
International Union of Soil Sciences (IUSS) in 2002. Under the leadership of
the Kingdom of Thailand and within the framework of the Global Soil
Partnership, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has supported the formal
establishment of WSD as a global awareness raising platform.
The FAO Conference unanimously endorsed World Soil Day in June 2013 and
requested its official adoption at the 68th United Nations (UN) General
Assembly.
In December 2013, the UN General Assembly responded by designating 5
December 2014 as the first official World Soil Day, according to the UN
website.