Peter Okoth Annual Program Review 2011 Nairobi, Kenya 9 May 2011 A Globally Integrated Africa Soil Information Service (AfSIS)

Grantee institution o The International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) Budget: US$ 18.1 m Implementing Institution o Tropical Soil Biology & Fertility (TSBF) Institute of (CIAT) Partners o Columbia University’s Earth Institute o World Soil Information (ISRIC) o World Agro-forestry Centre (ICRAF) o 5 initial NARS in Africa (Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Mali & Nigeria) o 22 other African countries

Presentation Outline Background Foreseen Impact Project Activities AfSIS Data Systems Soil Surveys Fertility trials Capacity building, user outreach, policy & dissemination

Background

Numbers About 500 million hectares of sub-Saharan Africa’s agricultural land are moderately or severely degraded African farmers are able to apply only 10 percent of the nutrients that farmers in the rest of the world return to the soil Soils in southwestern Kenya, for example, lose an estimated 100 kilograms of nitrogen per hectare each year

Nutrient depleted soils reason for poor crops & low productivity

Large scale land degradation due to soil erosion: How to address?

Foreseen Impact

Provide accurate & spatially explicit soil database for 42 African countries Contribute to the reversal of soil degradation in Africa Contribute to increased crop yields & improved livelihoods for approximately 1 to 2 million poor African households Prepare material and evidence to guide policy and action that enhances Africa’s soil & crop productivity Contribute to the development of African institutions capacity in soil mapping & fertility management

Project Progress & Outputs

Global efforts to raise funds & prepare the globalsoilmap.net Collecting soil pedology legacy data for the African node (AfSIS) Coordinated Dr. Alfred Hartemink-ISRIC Objective 1

Achievements

Key successes (objectives achieved) o Consortium agreement signed & nodes active o Specifications prepared and agreed upon o Soil legacy data for Africa collected (AfSIS)

Consortium Agreement Signed Slide Credit: Alfred Hartemink

Nodes are Established and Active North America Latin America/ Caribbean Eurasia Africa East Asia Oceania South Asia North Africa/West and Central Asia CUMERC (South Asia node is still pending)

Objective 2 Cyber Infrastructure & soils database Coordinated by Ms. Sonya Ahmed of New York’s Colombia University- Earth Institute

Achievements

Electronic mobile data collection toolkits developed Online databases installed on project website Algorithms for digital soil mapping & crop response Repeatable scientific workflows for data processing and analysis Interactive map viewer Tool for submitting soil spectra to and predicting soil properties from spectral libraries Tools for providing location specific, agronomic decision support to research and extension providers

Digital elevation map of Africa available on-line

Objective 3 Soil survey covering 18.1 sq km of Sub-Saharan Africa using samples collected from 60 sentinel sites in 27 sub-African countries Coordinated by Dr. Tor Vagen of ICRAF

AfSIS Sentinel Sampling ~17.5 million km2 of continental SSA ~0.6 million km2 of Madagascar Spatially stratified random sampling approach consisting of 60 sites Each 100 km 2 42 countries with 95% of human population ~9,600 new geo-referenced soil profiles 38,000 individual soil samples

One Sentinel Site 10 km Total of 160 sampling Points per site 4 soil samples per point

Example of a digital soil carbon condition map of Segou in Mali Low resolution-wider coverageHigh resolution-less coverage

IR spectroscopy of soils Regional network of NIR spectral laboratories (in the NARS) NIR training, Arusha MPA (NIR) spectrometer in Bamako Field testing of new spectrometer MPA (NIR) spectrometer in Arusha Construction of IR lab in Lilongwe Tor-G. Vågen, Lulseged T. Desta, Leigh Winowiecki, Jerome E. Tondoh and Keith D. Shepherd

Reference soil analyses (Nairobi) Tor-G. Vågen, Lulseged T. Desta, Leigh Winowiecki, Jerome E. Tondoh and Keith D. Shepherd

Some highlights of AfSIS activities in Southern Africa Built infrastructure and employed staff Employed field and laboratory staff – provided training...

Field Sample Collection (started Feb. 2010) So far, Nine sites have been surveyed: 2 in Malawi 6 in Mozambique 1 in Zambia (2 will be completed soon) Infiltration measurement Trip to Inhassunge sentinel site in Mozambique Training partners on data collection

Soil sample preparation in the lab at Chitedze Research Station in Lilongwe Near-infrared spectroscope for soil sample scanning So far, 2500 soil samples have been scanned Sample Preparation and Processing

Database Management System and Analyses Automated scientific workflow for data analysis

Automated reporting on soil properties Soil chemical and physical reference values Tor-G. Vågen, Lulseged T. Desta, Leigh Winowiecki, Jerome E. Tondoh and Keith D. Shepherd

Documentation of AfSIS methods and guidelines for implementation Tor-G. Vågen, Lulseged T. Desta, Leigh Winowiecki, Jerome E. Tondoh and Keith D. Shepherd

Objective 4 Implementing soil fertility diagnostic trials Formulating decision support systems Formulating management recommendation Coordinated by Dr. Jeroen Huising of CIAT-TSBF

Goal: Reducing Yield Gap Actual yield Potential yield

Maize Cultivation in Nyanza Continuous with no inputs-poor spacing 5 to 8 plants per hole Better planting with no fertilizers

Maize planted same day on adjacent fields on 13 th April 2009 With DAP & BeansWithout DAP

Diagnostic Trials

Selected Sites Sidindi Kiberashi Mbinga Nkhata Bay Thuchila Kontela Koloko Pampaida Ibi

Nutrient omission: yield gain/loss

Effect of fertilizer and amendments Error bars are bootstrap confidence limits Nkhata Bay, Malawi - Maize Thuchila, Malawi - Maize Koloko, Mali - Sorghum Kontela, Mali - Sorghum Sidindi, Kenya- Maize Kiberashi, Tanzania - Maize

AfSIS Annual Planning Meeting 2010 Co-locating trials with Obj. 3 sampling sites Total of 32 fields per sentinel site o Two (2) diagnostic trials per cluster randomly selected o Field centered to Y-frame o Partial replication

Linking objectives 3 and 4 synergies / opportunities Tor-G. Vågen, Lulseged T. Desta, Leigh Winowiecki, Jerome E. Tondoh and Keith D. Shepherd

Linking sentinel site baselines and diagnostic trials Co-locating trials at cluster levelRelating maps to crop performance Kiberashi Sentinel Site, Tanzania Tor-G. Vågen, Lulseged T. Desta, Leigh Winowiecki, Jerome E. Tondoh and Keith D. Shepherd

Crop growth performance in eroded (TRUE) vs non-eroded (FALSE) areas ControlNPK+Manure Tor-G. Vågen, Lulseged T. Desta, Leigh Winowiecki, Jerome E. Tondoh and Keith D. Shepherd Linking sentinel site baselines and diagnostic trials Kiberashi Sentinel Site, Tanzania Gompertz function:

The Sahelian Drylands Area: 1.2 million km 2 Population: 38 million Millet & sorghum belt: 23 million ha The Sahelian Drylands Area: 1.2 million km 2 Population: 38 million Millet & sorghum belt: 23 million ha Humid Forest Zone Area: 5.8 million km 2 Population: 168 million Cassava belt: 18 million ha NERICA potential: 2 million ha Humid Forest Zone Area: 5.8 million km 2 Population: 168 million Cassava belt: 18 million ha NERICA potential: 2 million ha Moist Savanna and Woodland Zones Area: 4.4 million km 2 Population: 157 million Maize belt: 32 million ha CA potential: 7 million ha Moist Savanna and Woodland Zones Area: 4.4 million km 2 Population: 157 million Maize belt: 32 million ha CA potential: 7 million ha S N E W kilometers Initial Impact zones targeted by AfSIS Nigeria Kenya Malawi Tanzania Mali

Objective 5 Serving end users, Packaging AfSIS Products, policy, & impact pathways Coordinated by Dr. Peter Okoth CIAT-TSBF

Specific Activities Coordinating the national partners & stakeholders Capacity building (Human & infrastructure) Serving end users Communication Policy Advocacy Gender

Achievements

Got agreement with Ministers in the five countries Prepared & signed MoAs Recruited the AfSIS National Coordinators & team Drafted TORs for the National Coordinators Drafted & signed LOAs, budgets & work-plans Created stakeholder committees Outputs

NARs teams & end users 1) Partners include: fertilizer companies, seed companies, NGOs, financial institutions

On the job training

Formal training in MSc & PhD

Infrastructure

AfSIS Conceptual Construction object location geometric attributes soil attributes HARDWARE SOFTWARE KNOWLEDGE WHO? HOW? WHERE? WHAT? USERS GIS system interface User concerns & project objectives response interface User concerns & project objectives response interface 1,3,4 2,5 object Specific objective attention domains Specific objective attention domains

User Needs Survey 1 Data collection tool-Structured questionnaire

International scientists exchange preferences

Extension service knowledge exchange preferences Extension Service Preferences DVD/CD players Internet Songs/Poems/Skits Brochures Mobile phones Barazas Billboards/Posters Books Newspapers/Magazines Radio Television Farmer Field Days On-farm demonstrations Workshops/Seminars ISFM information channels AfSIS to fill in by providing training & limited hardware

Data & Information Flows Soil fertility diagnostic & ISFM trials Soil fertility diagnostic & ISFM trials Possible spatial intervention domains Possible spatial intervention domains Geo-referenced spatial soils data & information Geo-referenced spatial soils data & information Cyber space Cyber space Other communication media Other communication media Management recommendations Policy guidelines & Briefs Management recommendations Policy guidelines & Briefs 7 F F F F 1, & 5 F F 2 & 5 Legacy data analysis Legacy data analysis 4 & 5 data maps knowledge maps

Impact Pathways Satisfy the user needs (how many reached with relevant & useful information?) Provide meaningful and usable recommendations to the users (how much information put to use?) Provide timely delivery of AfSIS products (when delivered and how delivered?) Please kindly fill in our questionnaire in folder for us to pick by end of day

Policy Use outputs of objective 3 and 4 to develop soil use policy including fertilizer use and blending with micro-nutrients Carry out social and economic studies to avail evidence to support policy briefs development Policy on input, output markets (The Malawi example) Policy on extension services

Partnerships Which kind of partnerships do we need to have for maximum impact? How do we structure the partnerships? How do we sustain the partnerships? Who pays?

Objective 6 Project management, integration, communication, science & capacity building Overall Leader: Dr. Nteranya Sanginga Project Director: Dr. Pedro Sanchez Project Leader: Dr. Markus Walsh

Looking Ahead!

Rmax Fmax RControl Fmin Inputs Grain Yields Ex-Ante Analysis Concept X1X1 X2X2 X3X3

Rmax Nutrients Labour Weeding Pest & Diseases Fmax Fmin Spacing Important Study Parameters Knowledge

Economic Analysis Models Communication pathways Adoption pathways Benefit cost analysis Economic surplus model Technical efficiencies

What we intend to do? Conduct field measurements Implement questionnaire & observations in the AfSIS farmers fields Feed the results into the nutrient manager Produce a bio-physical as well as a economic nutrient manager Deploy on the AfSIS website as well as on mobile phone interactive application

Thank You! Erokamano!