Sustainable intensification of agriculture and food security in Africa requires data-driven management and planning. This requires good quality soil data. While much soil data for Africa already exists, a big part of it is legacy data which is dated and collected using a variety of non-standard methodologies.
Funded by the Horizon 2020 programme of the European Union, Soils4Africa project will put in place by 2025 an Open-data Soil Information System (SIS). The SIS is based on baseline data collected from 20,000 locations across the continent and standardized methodologies that can be repeated again and again to keep the SIS growing in the future. The data will enable farmers, agri-businesses, scientists, and policymakers in their efforts towards sustainable intensification of agriculture and boosting food security; by improving the quality and availability of African soil data.
