Walk through any agricultural field in India today and pick up a handful of soil. It should smell earthy, teem with life, and crumble apart in your hand. But increasingly, what farmers and gardeners find is dry, compacted, lifeless dirt — and a 2021 report by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) confirms the scale of the crisis: over 70% of India's cultivable soil is deficient in one or more macro or micronutrients.