Some Notes About African Soil Information System

Prof. Tekalign Mamo, Senior Director and Program Leader, Agricultural Commercialization Clusters (ACC) and Ethiopian Soil Information

System (EthioSIS) Agricultural Transformation Agency

Addis Ababa, EthiopiaPresentation made at COP 22

Nov. 2016 , Marrakech

Outline

Major Types of Existing African Soil Information

Examples from different (regional, national) stakeholder initiatives

Conclusion

Major types of Existing Soil Information

• Soil profile Physico-chemical database

• Soil classification maps (global, regional, country levels)

• Soil fertility data (Wet chemistry and Spectral)

Recent Efforts and Actors • Individual country initiatives such as SA, Ethiopia,

Nigeria, Tanzania, Ghana, etc.

• International efforts to produce Africa soil maps and data (FAO, ISRIC, etc.).

• Africa–focused initiative in soil resource mapping by AfSIS (not suited for fertilizer recommendation).

• Stakeholder-assisted efforts such as what is being attempted by OCP in several African countries.

• Efforts being made by private soil testing companies (CNLS, Soil Cares, etc).

Africa Soil Profiles Database(http://africasoils.net ; http://www.isric.org)

@18,532 unique Soil profile records (93% are geo-referenced) for 40 countries.

Standardized and cleaned.

Soil analytical data are available for 15,564 profiles (of which 91% are geo-referenced).

Some individual countries also own fragmented soil profile information for targeted locations.

Leenaars J.G.B., A.J.M. van Oostrum and M. Ruiperez Gonzalez, 2014. Africa Soil Profiles Database, version 1.2. A compilation of geo-referenced and standardised legacy soil profile data for Sub-Saharan Africa (with dataset). ISRIC report 2014/01. Africa Soil Information Service (AfSIS) project. ISRIC – World Soil Information, Wageningen, the Netherlands.

Soil Spectral Lab Network in Africa (Source: ICRAF, 2016

• Ethiopia (ATA and 6 soil labs)• ICRAF, Nairobi, Kenya• IITA, Ibadan, Nigeria• IITA, Yaounde, Cameroon• IAR, Zaria, Nigeria• Obafemi Awolowo University, Ibadan,

Nigeria• KARI, Nairobi, Kenya• CNRA, Abidjan, Cote D’Ivoire• IAMM, Mozambique• AfSIS, Sotuba, Mali• AfSIS, Salien, Tanzania• AfSIS, Chitedze, Malawi

• CNLS, Nairobi, Kenya• Eggerton University, Kenya• MoA, Liberia• IER, Arusha Tanzania• FMARD, Nigeria• NIFOR, Nigeria• Soil Cares, Kenya (Mobile labs)

Soil Classification Maps: FAO Africa Soil Atlas

FAO/UNESCO Soil Map if the World (1:5000,000)

FAO/UNESCO Soil map of Ethiopia ----------------------1:2000,000 scale

Not updated since then

Soil analysis datadoesn’t exist .

A few examples from AfSIS initiatives

2016 Africa soil property predictions

pH Sand

CEC SOC

2015 Africa cropland probabilities

Probability

Croplands currently occur within ~6.7/30 million km2 of the African continent

Africa grids (2000-2016)downloads @: ftp://africagrids.net

NPP LST

RUE SRTM

MODIS, Landsat, Sentinel 2 reflectance and vegetation products (fPAR, EVI, NPP …)

MODIS, land energy balance (LST, albedo …).

TRMM, CHIRPS and other RFE products (MAP, Fournier index …).

SRTM & ASTER terrain models (elevation, slope, relief, CTI …).

Examples from Individual African country initiatives: Ethiopian digital Soil

Fertility Mapping (EthioSIS) Project

Source: EthioSIS 2016

pH < 5.2 = ~1.1 Mha (3%) of cropland areaLime requirement by Woreda

Source: EthioSIS 2016

Mehlich-3 P < 30 ppm = ~33 Mha (98%) of cropland area

Source: EthioSIS 2016

Mehlich-3 K < 200 ppm = ~26.3 Mha (~77%) of cropland area

Source: EthioSIS 2016

Mehlich-3 S < 20 ppm = ~34 Mha (99%) of cropland areaSource: EthioSIS 2016

Source: EthioSIS 2016

Source: EthioSIS 2016

Examples from OCP’s initiatives: West African countries

GUINEA CONAKRY

25

Crops selected

Cotton Maize Rice Horticulture

Phase 7

• Kindia

• Boké

• Kankan• Siguiri kouroussa• Dabola• Mandiana

Tow

ns

Initiatives Training Soil fertility map Laboratory

40 Guinean are formed, of which 18 managerial staff are trained in

Morocco (SIG, Horticulture, Awareness of small producers)

Pilot area of 100 000 ha in Faranah

Equipment of 3 soil analysis laboratories(SENASOL, IRAG

& Mobile laboratory)

Key stakeholders

Farm

ers

1500 1750

Ministry of Agriculture and fisheries Morocco

Ministry of Agriculture Guinea Research instituteIRAG, SENASOL

Guinea Conakry

20152 steps

20165 steps

May

MALI

26

Crops selected

MALI

May

1200 beneficiary farmers

Cotton Rice HorticultureMaize

20144 steps

IVORY COAST

27

Crops selectedCocoa

13 cocoa regions covered

October

1141 beneficiary farmers

2015 5 steps

11 Agricultural caravans in Morocco

28

Soil Fertility Map

• 14 operational regions• 26, 000 sample analysis are

already conducted

• 237 days of training and extension of the rational use of fertilizers for the benefit of 14 544 farmers and retailers

• 100 agricultural

demonstration tests

• 72 trials demonstrating

new NPK formulas

adapted to soils and

crops

• 3 OCP caravans

• 272 days of training

and extension of the

rational and reasoned

fertilizer

• 84 agricultural

demonstration tests

• 129 trials

demonstrating new

NPK formulas adapted

to soils and crops

• 3 OCP caravans

2014 2015

Key stakeholders

29

Next steps

Launch soil fertility map for 5 other African countries

• Togo

• Benin

• Madagascar

• Rwanda

• Tanzania

Done Next

CONCLUSION• Africa does not have a consolidated and up-to-date

regional soil information database; this is also a problem at country level.

• If countries have such information, it is fragmented and not holistic, thus making it difficult to feed into African soil database or even use as legacy data.

• While frequent efforts are there to generate soil information by stakeholders, they are not coordinated to enhance meaningful output (such as guiding the fertilizer advisory package at national level) and cost effectiveness.

• Lack of apex institutions at both regional and country levels greatly contributes to the problem.

• The policy body lacks up-to-date knowledge or information about soil being a non-renewable resource that is facing danger of extinction (E,g. Ethiopia wouldn’t have thought about launching EthioSIS without the establishment of the Ethiopian Agricultural transformation Agency, ATA).

• Africa cannot afford to ignore its soils since 95% of the food we eat

grows on soils and we need to leave healthy soil for the future

generation.

• Professionals have the responsibility to continuously knock on the door of the policy body to get heard.

‘’The Soil should no more be a hidden and unattended resource’’

CONCLUSION Ctd.

Thank you!