AfSIS works with a wide range of stakeholders to develop demand-driven spatial data and information products and services and helps to build institutions for improving the management of soils and landscapes.
Our “Priority Region of Interest” area is Africa’s cropland biome, which by our estimates currently occupies ~38% of the photosynthetically active land area of the African continent (~19.8 M km2) and encompasses more than 90% of its rural population living in 54 countries.
AfSIS Cropland Priority Region of Interest.
We are also fundamentally interested in the other photosynthetically active biomes of Africa that include forests and rangelands, but exclude deserts, urban areas and water bodies.
Overall Photosynthetically Active Region of Interest.
Our R&D activities include four main work streams:
- Development of soil and landscape information infrastructure and systems including core databases, protocols, standards, software, IT and data science.
- Creation of agronomic decision support applications that add value and inform decision making at multiple levels, from national and regional policy formation to farm-level land management with project partners.
- Institutionalization, capacity strengthening and learning support for deploying institutional soil and landscape information systems and services.
- Sustainable business development and communications innovation support.