• Thounaojam Thomas Meetei
• Yumnam Bijilaxmi Devi
• Khaidem Jackson
• Krittika

Soil health is one of the most important resources for sustainable agriculture, improving agro-ecosystems and environmental sustainability. Improving soil health is the only key factor for safeguarding our future food grain production. Since time immemorial everyone is busy for the production of food only without taking care of the soil. Nowadays people are more aware of good soil health after the introduction of the concept ‘sustainable agriculture’. With sustainable agriculture, one will be producing foods without compromising future production. There are certain management practices for improving soil health. Among all agroforestry system is one of the most important that can improve the soil health with safeguarding the future production. With the introduction of agroforestry, different soil physical, chemical and biological properties increase with improving the farm incomes. Agroforestry is the combined venture of forestry, horticulture, agriculture and vetenarary. With the inclusion of tree species with crops the production increases with increasing soil health. Biomass returns of both surface and sub-surface increases with adoption of agroforestry through leaf litter and root, respectively. With increase biomass return to soil, the soil organic matter (SOM) concentration increases which is the most important source of food to the beneficial microorganisms present in soil. With increase in population of microorganisms in soil the decomposition process as well as transformation of different nutrients in soil increases. The biomass returns also acts as mulching materials to soil reducing the impact of rain drops, which is the basic principle of conservation agriculture. With the adoption of different agroforestry systems with proper selection of tree species, certain important soil health attributes (physical, chemical and biological) increases. In short, with the adoption of agroforestry system soil health can be improved which will safeguard the sustainable food production.

Agroforestry, soil health, sustainable agriculture, soil organic matter

"AGROFORESTRY: A MANAGEMENT STRATEGY FOR IMPROVING SOIL HEALTH", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.5, Issue 10, page no.84-95, October 2018, Available :http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIRDQ06011.pdf

"AGROFORESTRY: A MANAGEMENT STRATEGY FOR IMPROVING SOIL HEALTH", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org | UGC and issn Approved), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.5, Issue 10, page no. pp84-95, October 2018, Available at : http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIRDQ06011.pdf