April 2024 - Soils4Africa at Africa Fertilizer & Soil Health Summit 2024

Soils4Africa at Africa Fertilizer & Soil Health Summit 2024

The Soils4Africa project will be presented during the side event “Monitoring soil health and soil health investments at different scales” at the upcoming Africa Fertiliser and Soil Health Summit in Nairobi, Kenya
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January - February 2024 - Progress update from the North Africa Hub

In recent months, the North Africa Hub has seen great progress with training and soil sample collection campaigns in different countries.
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December 2023 Mozambique Training

December 2023 - Soils4Africa training workshop in Mozambique

Building on the collaboration between Soils4Africa Project, International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and the Agricultural
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Soils4Africa continues its efforts with training and fieldtrip preparation

By December of 2023, Soils4Africa project has been in full implementation for 3.5 years. International Institute for Tropical Agriculture IITA, who is in charge of ...
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Soils4Africa's lessons learned in 3 years of continent-wide implementation

European Union (EU) funded Horizon 2020 Soils4Africa project held its third Annual Project Meeting in May 2023 in ...
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September-2023 Soils4Africa project participated in the RIC2023 conference

The Soils4Africa project participated in the 7^th International Conference (RIC2023) hosted by the Regional Centre for Mapping of Resources for Development (RCMRD) in Nairobi, Kenya, and held from August 8 to 10, 2023...
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July-2023 Soils4Africa Participation at the 5th AU-EU Ministerial Conference

The H2020 Soils4Africa project coordinated by ISRIC participated at the 5th AU–EU Agriculture Ministerial Conference in Rome on 30th June to present recommendations and key messages from a cluster of 5 EU-funded projects...
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Training workshop in Tanzania with Tanzania Agricultural Research Institute (TARI)

Update from Tanzania: Under Soils4Africa project scope, The International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) organized a training workshop with 20 participants from across the country.
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March 2023: Training of field surveyors in Zambia

During the last week of March 2023, Soils4Africa project successfully completed another training for field surveyors in Zambia.
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First batch of soil sample shipped to Agricultural Research Council ARC, Pretoria

After a long time working on soil sample collection, we are pleased to share the good news that the first batch of soil sample has been shipped for lab analysis.
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Soils4Africa Training workshop on soil sampling for East Africa Regional Hub (November 2022)

Early November 2022, Soils4Africa project organized the sixth (6) workshop for capacity building and training for the field campaign for East Africa.  
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Update on field campaign for soil sampling under Soils4Africa
(December 2022)

Much is happening with soil sampling for the Soils4Africa project. The campaigns have been started in Nigeria, Ghana, and Burkina Faso, with relatively good progress. 
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Soils4Africa field campaign kicks off in Ghana, Nigeria (Sep 22, 2022)

Field observations were conducted and soil samples collected at the first of the 20,000 points identified across agricultural land in Africa. 
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Soils4Africa Annual Project Meeting (Sep 15, 2022)

Project team meets in Djerba, Tunisia for its annual meeting and the meeting of regional hub coordinators (September 12-14, 2022) 
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Out now: Field protocol videos now available in English, French, Arabic (July 30, 2022)

Video guides to Soils4Africa's soil sampling and field observation methodologies are now available on YouTube, in French and Arabic apart from English
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Soils4Africa coordinator visits Work Package 5 Leaders ARC South Africa (June 06, 2022)

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Update: Out now: Field protocol videos (June 03, 2022)

Video guides to Soils4Africa's soil sampling and field observation methodologies are now available on YouTube.
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Update: First regional training workshops for Soils4Africa country supervisors held in West Africa (April 21, 2022)

The workshops were held between March 28 and April 14; in in Ibadan (Nigeria), Kumasi (Ghana), and Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso).
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Update: Preparations for the Soils4Africa field campaign underway (March 08, 2022)

Updates from the project: The field campaign will begin soon. Key training material, survey and data management tool are being prepared
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Soils4Africa endorsed by African agricultural organisations (Nov 24, 2021)

A number of key high-level organisations from the African agricultural sector endorsed the Soils4Africa project’s efforts towards building a continental-scale soil information system (SIS), at a webinar held as part of the 17th Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) on November 24, 2021.
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Soils4Africa webinar at the FNSSA Stakeholders Engagement Week: Summary of questions and responses

Questions received at the event, and corresponding responses from the Soils4Africa project. Some of the them could be answered directly, at the webinar, other could not be due to lack of time.
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Recordings: Soils4Africa webinar at the FNSSA Stakeholders Engagement Week (June 03, 2021)​

Recordings of the various sessions at the webinar are now available.
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Soils4Africa webinar at FNSSA Stakeholder Engagement Week (June 03, 2021)​

In a webinar at the FNSSA Stakeholder Engagement Week, Soils4Africa will discuss strategies to embed its Soil Information System in FNSSA’s knowledge platform, as a decision support tool for effective land use for sustainable agricultural intensification in Africa. The webinar will be held on June 03, 2021, 1100-1300 GMT.  Read more >>  
 

FNSSA Stakeholder Engagement Week: Call for Sessions​

The LEAP4FNSSA Project invites stakeholders within the food, nutrition security and sustainable agriculture sector to submit proposals to host a session during the Stakeholder Engagement Week. The event, which is aimed at cross-sectoral participation from governments, universities, SMEs, development agencies, research institutes, agribusinesses and farmer organisations, will take place virtually from 31 May to 4 June 2021. For more information, visit https://tinyurl.com/cj2c35rc

Soils4Africa presents methodology to steering committee (April 8, 2021)​

On April 8, 2021, the Soils4Africa Project Executive Team presented the project's overall methodology and sampling design to the project's steering committee. The team also presented the map of agricultural land of continental Africa, which will guide the sampling design. The committee provided feedback and comments. The methodology will soon be finalised and made available on this website.                         

Soil data needs in agricultural extension services (March 26, 2021)​

From a soil data point of view, it is extension workers that collect and analyse samples from smallholder farms, manage the process of laboratory analysis, synthesize the results, and prescribe soil management measures on their basis. Thus, extension workers will be the ones who will carry benefits of any soil information system down to the farm level. Read more>>
 

European Commission consults on EU Soil Strategy (February 05, 2021)​

The European Commission has launched an online public consultation on the development of a new EU Soil Strategy. This is the last of a set of public consultations on different ecosystems delivering on the specific commitments in the EU Biodiversity Strategy 2030.  Read More >> 

Soils4Africa maps agricultural land in Africa (February 03, 2021)​

The Soils4Africa project has produced a ‘map of agricultural land of continental Africa.’ The map depicts the distribution of agricultural land (land used for growing crops, grazing livestock, and various other agricultural uses) across the continent. It will be used by the project as basis for the selection of the 20,000 sites where it will collect soil samples, which will be analysed to produce the baseline data for a continental-level soil information system (SIS). Read more>>

Soils4Africa's message on World Soil Day 2020 (December 5, 2020)​

The theme of World Soil Day 2020 was 'Keep Soil Alive, Protect Soil Biodiversity'. On the occasion, Soils4Africa's Dr. Rachel Creamer (Chair, Soil Biology Group- Wageningen University) discusses how soil biology is inextricably linked to agriculture. Watch Video>>
 

Why we are building a Soil Information System for Africa  (November 13, 2020)​

​Data drives our lives the way Oil once did, leading many to posit that ‘Data is the new Oil.’ At the same time, there are aspects of our lives and regions of the world where  good quality/ actionable data is scarce and/or outdated. A case in point is soil data in Africa, key to ‘Sustainable Intensification’ of agriculture in the continent. Soils4Africa has been conceived to address some key limitations of African soil data; such as lack of standard methodologies, inadequate geo-referencing, insufficient metadata, and a lack of systematic representation of Africa's various agro-ecological zones. Read more>>

Soils4Africa links up with other EU Horizon 2020 projects (November 11, 2020)​

​​Soils4Africa project kicks off (September 2, 2020)

A 2-day meeting (September 1-2, 2020) marked the kickoff of the Soils4Africa project. In line with COVID-19-related measures across the world, the meeting was virtual. Project partners thrashed out details related to modalities of the project's implementation. Work has already begun on preparation of 'use cases,' or profiles of active/potential soil information users from various sectors (land management, soil research, agriculture, agribusinesses, etc.). These profiles will inform the choice of indicators in the Soil Information System (SIS)​, and various aspects of its usability. (More information on this will be available soon)

Training workshop in Tanzania with Tanzania Agricultural Research Institute (TARI)

Update from Tanzania: Under Soils4Africa project scope, The International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) organized a training workshop with 20 participants from across the country.
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