Liberia Gets First Digital Soil Information System

The Ministry of Agriculture (MOA), in collaboration with development partners, has launched the country's first digital soil information system to enhance sustainable soil management.

Liberia's Soil Information System (LibSIS) seeks to build on the need to have a better understanding of the status of soil resources in Liberia to preserve national soil resources from degradation.

The stakeholders launched the platform yesterday in Monrovia at a meeting attended by representatives of the Ministry of Agriculture, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Forestry Development Authority, the World Bank, and other development partners.

According to FAO’s 2021 report on the status of the world’s soil resources, approximately 33% of the global soils are degraded. In sub-Saharan Africa, water and rain erosion account for 77% of the region's soil degradation. Liberia has been identified as one of the areas most seriously affected by erosion.

However, in Liberia, accessing soil information presents numerous challenges due to the inadequacy of available soil data. This hampers effective land use decision making and sustainable soil management, thus leaving the country’s soil and agricultural potential highly vulnerable.

To overcome the challenges, in 2021, the government of Liberia and the FAO jointly agreed on the need to improve the country’s soil information portfolio, starting with a two year project entitled Strengthening Soil Analysis and Information Systems to Enhance Sustainable Soil Management and Support Evidence-Based Decision-Making in Liberia, under the Technical Cooperation Program (TCP) of the FAO.

Since the launch of the TCP, it has achieved in setting or strengthening soil laboratories, conducting the national soil information systems, profiling locations from which soil is collected and analyzed, training personnel on digital soil mapping, among others.

Launching the platform on behalf of the Minister of Agriculture, Jeanine M. Cooper, the Chief of Staff at the office of the Minister, Ansu Konneh, said that the initiative is expected to attract investors to the agricultural sector and improve the productivity of the country’s farmers.

“Since 1970 we have not had a detailed soil mapping exercise of the country. But this is a supplement of what our partners have been doing. This is a part of the mandate of the Ministry of Agriculture. Since the minister took over, she has insisted that there can be no better performance of the sector in the absence of taking stock. The Minister said that looking at the potential of the sector, soil mapping for decision making processes was highly important,” he said.

Konneh said that there was a need for a sustainable plan toward the initiative to enhance the understanding of the farmers.

“We need to make sure how the data can be made available to our smallholder farmers in a simplest manner,” he stated.

The Head of Programs at the FAO, Octavius Quabo said during the meeting that the process of the soil map initiative has been a long journey as a commitment of FAO to the government and people of Liberia.

The project targeted Nimba County to pilot the soil data collection and analysis and digitalization of the information through the establishment of the soil information system.

The exercise was carried out by the FAO in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture, the Central Agriculture Research Institute and the University of Liberia.

.... “Since 1970 we have not had a detailed soil mapping exercise of the country. But this is a supplement of what our partners have been doing. This is a part of the mandate of the Ministry of Agriculture. Since the minister took over, she has insisted that there can be no better performance of the sector in the absence of taking stock. The Minister said that looking at the potential of the sector, soil mapping for decision making processes was highly important,” he said.

The Ministry of Agriculture (MOA), in collaboration with development partners, has launched the country's first digital soil information system to enhance sustainable soil management.

Liberia's Soil Information System (LibSIS) seeks to build on the need to have a better understanding of the status of soil resources in Liberia to preserve national soil resources from degradation.

The stakeholders launched the platform yesterday in Monrovia at a meeting attended by representatives of the Ministry of Agriculture, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Forestry Development Authority, the World Bank, and other development partners.

According to FAO’s 2021 report on the status of the world’s soil resources, approximately 33% of the global soils are degraded. In sub-Saharan Africa, water and rain erosion account for 77% of the region's soil degradation. Liberia has been identified as one of the areas most seriously affected by erosion.

However, in Liberia, accessing soil information presents numerous challenges due to the inadequacy of available soil data. This hampers effective land use decision making and sustainable soil management, thus leaving the country’s soil and agricultural potential highly vulnerable.

To overcome the challenges, in 2021, the government of Liberia and the FAO jointly agreed on the need to improve the country’s soil information portfolio, starting with a two year project entitled Strengthening Soil Analysis and Information Systems to Enhance Sustainable Soil Management and Support Evidence-Based Decision-Making in Liberia, under the Technical Cooperation Program (TCP) of the FAO.

Since the launch of the TCP, it has achieved in setting or strengthening soil laboratories, conducting the national soil information systems, profiling locations from which soil is collected and analyzed, training personnel on digital soil mapping, among others.

Launching the platform on behalf of the Minister of Agriculture, Jeanine M. Cooper, the Chief of Staff at the office of the Minister, Ansu Konneh, said that the initiative is expected to attract investors to the agricultural sector and improve the productivity of the country’s farmers.

“Since 1970 we have not had a detailed soil mapping exercise of the country. But this is a supplement of what our partners have been doing. This is a part of the mandate of the Ministry of Agriculture. Since the minister took over, she has insisted that there can be no better performance of the sector in the absence of taking stock. The Minister said that looking at the potential of the sector, soil mapping for decision making processes was highly important,” he said.

Konneh said that there was a need for a sustainable plan toward the initiative to enhance the understanding of the farmers.

“We need to make sure how the data can be made available to our smallholder farmers in a simplest manner,” he stated.

The Head of Programs at the FAO, Octavius Quabo said during the meeting that the process of the soil map initiative has been a long journey as a commitment of FAO to the government and people of Liberia.

The project targeted Nimba County to pilot the soil data collection and analysis and digitalization of the information through the establishment of the soil information system.

The exercise was carried out by the FAO in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture, the Central Agriculture Research Institute and the University of Liberia.

Stakeholders hope to scale up its activities nationwide to generate and manage appropriate soil information in a comprehensive manner by expanding the project target areas to the rest of the counties.

Quabo said that with minimum resources, FAO was able to restore the capacity of the UL soil laboratory to an acceptable standard, procure equipment for the Ministry of Agriculture laboratory and was able to develop the soil data platform for people to access.

Meanwhile, the Technical Advisor to Minister Cooper, Thomas Gbokie explained that with the soil data analysis platform Liberian farmers will be able to know the right kind of crops to grow at a particular location and the right fertilizers application.

He said that there are some fertilizers coming into the country that are not applicable to certain agricultural environments of the country.

“With the soil map, farmers will know the kind of nutrients that are available for a particular farming region. Our farmers apply some fertilizers that they don’t need to apply. And those are issues that the Minister of Agriculture has been raising. It is very much important that we have this initiative realized for our country at this time,” he told stakeholders.

Stakeholders hope to scale up its activities nationwide to generate and manage appropriate soil information in a comprehensive manner by expanding the project target areas to the rest of the counties.

Quabo said that with minimum resources, FAO was able to restore the capacity of the UL soil laboratory to an acceptable standard, procure equipment for the Ministry of Agriculture laboratory and was able to develop the soil data platform for people to access.

Meanwhile, the Technical Advisor to Minister Cooper, Thomas Gbokie explained that with the soil data analysis platform Liberian farmers will be able to know the right kind of crops to grow at a particular location and the right fertilizers application.

He said that there are some fertilizers coming into the country that are not applicable to certain agricultural environments of the country.

“With the soil map, farmers will know the kind of nutrients that are available for a particular farming region. Our farmers apply some fertilizers that they don’t need to apply. And those are issues that the Minister of Agriculture has been raising. It is very much important that we have this initiative realized for our country at this time,” he told stakeholders.