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Land uses has significant impact on soil biological properties that incessantly intimates the soil quality change and are assessed by soil microbial and biochemical indicators, as they are highly sensitive to change in environment. The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of land use on soil enzyme activities and gene diversity in selected location of Northwestern Himalayas, India. Nine different land use system of similar soil type at depth 0-15cm were analyzed for soil enzymes (Dehydrogenase, Acid Phosphatase, Alkaline Phosphatase, Nitrate Reductase, Arylsulphatase, and Phytase) and genetic fingerprints (Randomly Amplified Polymorphic DNA) analysis. The land use systems investigated are Oak (Quercus incana), Deodar (Cedrus deodara), Pine (Pinus roxburghii) trees, Apple orchids and crop based systems in uplands and valleys. All the soil enzymes were significantly higher in forest ecosystem followed by organic farm and conventional maize-wheat farm soil. The principal component analysis (PCA) of nine different land use systems based on soil enzymes shows significant variation in data and all the long-term agricultural lands were segregated together. However maize-wheat and organic farm are group together in the PCA plot. Hierarchical clustering by wards method of soil enzymes clusters the deodar forest soil, oak forest soil and organic farming in one cluster and segregates remaining land use system in another. RAPD analysis showed high polymorphism between samples and similarity indexing using unweighted pair-group method with arithmetic averages resulted in four clusters. Land use showed significantly negative impact on soil enzymes and genetic fingerprints in long-term agricultural lands as compared to natural forest ecosystem and organic farming as reveal by RAPD assisted marker.

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The emerging infectious diseases are increasing in frequency exerting significant impact on human health and severely threatening global economy. Now at present, the whole globe is facing the challenges evolved owing to Corona virus (COVID-19) pandemic, which has set the clock backwards on the developmental progress of several nations including India and pauses the global economy owing to repeated lockdowns. The agricultural sector owing to its diverse output (crops, horticulture, dairying, fisheries, etc.) only showed positive growth in Indian GDP (gross domestic product) despite various challenges faced by this sector especially labour shortage, transportation, marketing, etc. The central as well as several state governments also issued supportive steps to favour agricultural related activities and provided incentives to farmers to unlock growth. Still, there is necessity to support and promote digital platforms to scale up on an emergency basis and provide an outlet for the farmers’ produce immediately. The government should think to build storage facilities on villages’ level as well as brought policies to support pricing (minimum support price) for other nutritious cereals like sorghum and millets.