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 legacy soil profile dataset (consisting of Profiles Site = 2,612 observations with 37 variables; Profiles Layer Field = 6,150 observations with 64 variables; Profiles Layer Lab= 4,575 observations with 76 variables) is extracted, transformed, and uploaded into a harmonized template from the below source:
Bilateral Ethiopian-Netherlands Effort for Food, Income and Trade (BENEFIT) Partnership which is a portfolio of five programs (ISSD, Cascape, ENTAG, SBN, and REALISE) and is funded by the government of the Kingdom of Netherlands through its embassy in Addis Ababa. The Cascape program has conducted several studies, including soil surveys and mappings in AGP weredas in Tigray, Amhara, Oromia,and SNNPR in Ethiopia. The program (then Cascape project) as a collaborator of MoA/ATA has produced a map-database and soildataset of the major soil types (at 250-m resolution) of the landscapes of the 30 Cascape intervention-AGP weredas studied in 2013-2015: 5 of Tigray, 5 of Amhara, 15 of Oromia, and 5 of SNNPR.
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.
