Healthy soils are teeming with life. Through pollination, pest control and nutrient cycling, biodiversity is responsible for ecosystem services that play a critical role in shaping soils and agroecosystems and consequently, food security and people’s livelihoods.But as large swathes of land in India undergo degradation, it raises important questions around the loss of animals, plants and microorganisms. Intensive agricultural practices have stripped the natural fertility from many landscapes resulting in what is called degraded land. There are also regions that are naturally susceptible to degradation because of factors such as the quality of groundwater.