… as Bill & Melinda Foundation supports initiative
HARRISON EDEH, ABUJA
The Federal Government has kick-started the African Soil Information Service (AFSIS) pilot project in order to address the lack of quality information and data on soil and agricultural landscape.
The initiative, the Federal Government said, will help boost sustainable agricultural productivity across the Nigerian agro-ecologies.
The project, which is being funded by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, builds technology innovations and services to fill one of the major gaps in spatial information in African soil, which has been identified to be hampering scientific progress in agri-economic development.
The Gates Foundation and Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa initiated AFSIS projects in five countries namely: Tanzania, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya and Nigeria, a statement from the Federal Ministry of Agriculture said.
The project, the statement said would take off in Ebonyi and Kebbi State; while the new techniques/ technologies will be used to build capacity through training of staff in Abuja, Kaduna and Ibadan over the next one week.
Bukar Hassan, the permanent secretary in the Ministry while meeting with members of the Ministerial Steering Committee on the African Soil Information Service (AFSIS) and formal launching of the AfSIS pilot project in the ministry on Monday, said he was impressed with the work AFSIS was doing to build technology innovations and services to drive the future of African Agriculture.
He pointed out that particularly the technology would assist governments, farmers and relevant stakeholders in Agriculture to pay more attention to soil development in moving the agricultural sector forward.
Represented by the Director of Plantation in the Department of Agriculture, Quadri Olalekan, he said, “Our farmers will no longer continue to shoot in the dark, the project is important and we will be able to maximise the duration of the project and get the best out of it”.
Earlier the Director, Lands and Climate Change, Sunday Edibo has explained that the AfSIS project which is being funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is aimed at “rapidly expanding the use of world class information technology and data science to ensure that Africa’s soil and landscape resources are described, understood and used effectively to increase agricultural productivity and lower the ecological footprints of agriculture as a means of raising the prosperity of Africa’s communities and nations.”
He explained further that the African Soil Information Service project (AfSIS) is in collaboration with the Nigeria Soil Information System (NiSIS) and the Ministry to update soil and landscape information for Nigeria using modern measurement and mapping techniques.
Edibo said the area of work covered so far include; fairly detailed soil and fertilizer response survey of the central maize producing area of Nigeria ; training of soil and plant laboratory for NiSIS and IITA staff in spectral methods for soil prediction; compilation and updating of relevant remote sensing data for soil and landscape mapping and spectral and spatial prediction model development to generate new soil maps and landscape information products.
He stated that the team would commence the training of staff of the ministry on soil / crop standard operating procedures (SOP) and the information gathered would be used in soil maps and assist farmers in crop production, particularly in supporting the development of grasses in ranches .
The chairman of the AfSIS- NiSIS Ministerial Steering Committee and a University don in the Department of Soil Science, Institute for Agricultural Research, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria ,Ishaku Amapu – a Professor in his presentation said the AfSIS – NiSIS pilot project on Nutrient assessment of Nigeria crop lands is starting with Kebbi and Ebonyi states with 582 locations and 208 locations, respectively, with focus on soil development.
Amapu said the pilot project would among other things provide spatially explicit observations, measurements and predictions of nutrients level and the information would be used for ranches to provide grasses needed for healthy growth of animals.
He appealed to the Federal Government to expedite action on the complete survey of the remaining part of the country.
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