{"id":6981,"date":"2019-12-05T08:25:59","date_gmt":"2019-12-05T05:25:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africasustainabilitymatters.com\/?p=6981"},"modified":"2026-01-11T05:30:44","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T05:30:44","slug":"ethiopia-is-making-maps-to-help-improve-soil-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/2019\/12\/05\/ethiopia-is-making-maps-to-help-improve-soil-health\/","title":{"rendered":"Ethiopia Is Making Maps To Help Improve Soil Health"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>By<\/strong> <strong>Ermias\nBetemariam<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Healthy soils are vital to human survival. They play a\npivotal role in feeding global populations \u2013 after all, food is grown in soil.\nHealthy soils grow more crops and allow for nutrients to be better absorbed by\nthe crops. That\u2019s why it\u2019s important to understand exactly when there might be\na problem with the soil of a particular area, and what\u2019s causing it. Without a\nprecise diagnosis, soil can\u2019t be successfully treated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Soil health is a matter of striking the right combination of\nchemical, physical and biological properties. Soil is made up of mineral\nparticles including sand, silt and clay; organic matter \u2013 such as plant and\nanimal residue \u2013 air and water. By looking at these we can determine how\nhealthy, or unhealthy, soil is \u2013 for example whether it is able to retain\nwater, store carbon and resist erosion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In Ethiopia, poor soil health is&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ifpri.org\/publication\/crop-production-ethiopia\">making it\ndifficult<\/a>&nbsp;for farmers to grow staple food such as teff, wheat, maize,\nsorghum, and barley and eke out a living.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This declining soil health has been&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/sustainable-business\/2016\/may\/02\/ethiopia-famine-drought-land-restoration\">caused\nby<\/a>&nbsp;unsustainable farming practices \u2013 such as the use of too much fertiliser\nor farming on slopes \u2013 overgrazing and erosion caused by deforestation, meaning\ntree roots aren\u2019t holding soil in place. In addition, state ownership of all\nland in Ethiopia&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/old.worldagroforestry.org\/downloads\/Publications\/PDFS\/WP12160.pdf\">means\nthat<\/a>&nbsp;farmers are insecure about their tenure and less inclined to\ninvest in the land\u2019s health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Fortunately, if soils are degraded or starved, they can be\ntreated to restore their balance. But to treat soils, it\u2019s important to first\ndiagnose the soil\u2019s health to ascertain what\u2019s lacking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To better understand what it would take to increase crop\nyields in Ethiopia, my colleagues and I&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/wle.cgiar.org\/solutions\/ethiopian-soil-information-system-ethiosis\">set\nout<\/a>&nbsp;to get to know the country\u2019s soil. This is part of the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/wle.cgiar.org\/solutions\/ethiopian-soil-information-system-ethiosis\">Ethiopia\nSoil Information Service<\/a>, established with support from&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/worldagroforestry.org\/\">World Agroforestry<\/a>&nbsp;and the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/wle.cgiar.org\/\">CGIAR Research Program on Water, Land and\nEcosystems<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/ethiopia-is-making-maps-to-help-improve-soil-health-123101\">Read\nmore\u2026<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Ermias Betemariam Healthy soils are vital to human survival. They play a pivotal role in feeding global populations \u2013 after all, food is grown in soil. Healthy soils grow&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6983,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6981"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6981\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}