By Lauren Harper and Andrea Meado State of the Planet Blog
Blog
State of the Planet Blog: Pictures Worth a Thousand Words: How Satellite Imagery is Improving Agriculture in Developing Countries
Category: Blog
Soil nutrient maps of Sub-Saharan Africa: assessment of soil nutrient content at 250 m spatial resolution using machine learning
Nutrient Cycling in Agroecosystems 109: 77-102 Springer
Rapid, low-cost technologies generate high-value soils information for planners and farmers
By Keith Shepherd Soil samples awaiting infrared scanning at the CGIAR’s Soil-Plant Spectral Diagnostic Laboratory based at ICRAF. Photo by Keith Shepherd/ICRAF A big, risky decision for smallholder farmers is what type and how much fertilizer to apply to their crops. There is lot of uncertainty about how the crops will respond, with a risk […]
Scientists use technology to shine a light on Africa’s farms
October 6, 2016 By Ed Sulzberger, Tiff Harris and Keith Shepherd Nairobi, Kenya – Portuguese explorers began mapping the African coastline in the 15th century in an effort to dominate the international spice trade. Those early maps, though crude, had a profound effect on Africa’s history and the wellbeing of her people. Today, a new […]
ISRIC Spring School 2016 Wageningen UR from 9 – 13 May 2016
Category: Events
5-day training course on soil mapping, classification and assessment for soil and environmental scientists. Introduction to world soils, soil databases, software for soil data analysis and visualisation, digital soil mapping and soil-web services. Deadline for registration: 21 February 2016
Data revolution
Category: Blog
How Much Data? Rapid advances in technology have dramatically lowered the cost of gathering data. Sensors in space, the sky, the lab, and the field, along with newfound opportunities for crowdsourcing and widespread adoption of the Internet and mobile telephones, are making large amounts of information available to those for whom it was previously out […]
New cropland and rural settlement maps of Africa
Category: Blog
Quantifying the geographical extent, location and spatial dynamics of croplands and rural settlements provides essential information for managing our food production systems and their socio-economic, health, environmental, and ecological impacts. We have been working on an approach for mapping, and potentially monitoring, the spatial distribution of Africa’s cropland biome and its associated rural settlements. The […]
Launch of the Ghana Soil Information Service (GhaSIS)
Category: Blog
The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) for Ghana held a two day workshop in Accra from 22-23 April 2015 to launch and plan the Ghana soil information service (GhaSIS). The work shop was co-organized by the Soils Research Institute and the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology. The workshop took place at […]
Rapid, low-cost technologies generate high-value soils information for planners and farmers
Category: Blog
A big, risky decision for smallholder farmers is what type and how much fertilizer to apply to their crops. There is lot of uncertainty about how the crops will respond, with a risk that the farmers will even lose when they harvest and sell the produce. Testing the soil beforehand and knowing how plants will […]