Although soil and agronomy data collection in Ethiopia has begun over 60 years ago, the data are hardly accessible as they are scattered across different organizations, mostly held in the hands of individuals (Ashenafi et al.,2020; Tamene et al.,2022), which makes them vulnerable to permanent loss. Cognizant of the problem, the Coalition of the Willing (CoW) for data sharing and access was created in 2018 with joint support and coordination of the Alliance Bioversity-CIAT and GIZ (https://www.ethioagridata.com/index.html).
Mobilizing its members, the CoW has embarked on data rescue operations including data ecosystem mapping, collation, and curation of the legacy data, which was put into the central data repository for its members and the wider data user’s community according to the guideline developed based on the FAIR data principles and approved by the CoW. So far, CoW managed to collate and rescue about 20,000 legacy soil profile data and over 38,000 crop responses to fertilizer data (Tamene et al.,2022). The crop response dataset (N=4,032 observations) is extracted, transformed, and uploaded into a harmonized template, consisting of 76 variables.
From 2001 to 2006, intensive soil test-based fertilizer calibration trials (mainly phosphorus calibration trials) took place. These trials were coordinated by the federal National Soil Testing Centre (NSTC) (then NSRC) and implemented by 15 regional soil laboratories. This nationwide fertilizer calibration mission had collected a huge soil and agronomic dataset for various major crops across diverse agroecosystems. However, this dataset was not interpreted as per the set methodology mainly because of limitations in the experimental protocol used after all the field and lab data were collected (Farina, 2011). This nationally collected huge soil and agronomy dataset was abandoned, left in the hands of individuals and unreachable due to staff turnover and restructuring of the soil laboratories. However, if the data did not work for soil test-based P-fertilizer calibration at that time, the soil and crop response data probably are fit for other purposes to address systemic production and productivity problems across locations in Ethiopia. Hence, these voluminous nationwide datasets have been tracked down and brought on board, by the Coalition of the Willing (CoW), to the national database for further analysis and interpretation by various data users.
Reference:
Ashenafi, A., Tamene, L., and Erkossa, T. 2020. Identifying, Cataloguing, and Mapping Soil and Agronomic Data in Ethiopia. CIAT Publication No. 506. International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT). Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. 42 p. 10.13140/RG.2.2.31759.41123.
Tamene L; Erkossa T; Tafesse T; Abera W; Schultz S. 2021. A coalition of the Willing - Powering data-driven solutions for Ethiopian Agriculture. CIAT Publication No. 518. International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT). Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. 34 p. https://www.ethioagridata.com/Resources/Powering%20Data-Driven%20Solutions%20for%20Ethiopian%20Agriculture.pdf.
The Coalition of the Willing (CoW) website: https://www.ethioagridata.com/index.html.
TERMS:
Access to the data is limited to the CoW members until the national soil and agronomy data-sharing directive of MoA is registered by the Ministry of Justice and released for implementation.
DISCLAIMER:
The dataset populated in the harmonized template consisting of 76 variables is extracted, transformed, and uploaded from the source document by the CoW. Hence, if any irregularities are observed, the data users have referred to the source document uploaded along with the dataset. Use of the dataset and any consequences arising from using it is the user’s sole responsibility.
