More than 35 agripreneurs from Kirinyaga County were on Thursday trained on Digital Soil Mapping ahead of a soil survey exercise which will culminate with the development of the country’s first digital soil fertility database.
The training, spearheaded by the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organisation (KALRO), was conducted at the Wambugu Farm Agriculture Training Centre in Nyeri County and is expected to impart skills to agripreneurs who will work with the agency to collect over 77,000 soil samples in 45 counties.
According to KALRO’s Researcher, Peterson Njeru, this is the first time the country will conduct a digital soil mapping exercise. He said that findings from the survey will establish the current soil health status in the country.
Further, the geo maps will contain vital soil information from the ward level to the county level and will be used by the government to keep track of any changes in the soil.
They will also inform government policy on the right intervention to employ based on the soil attributes in each region.
Njeru noted that besides establishing the digital soil footprint, KALRO will use the results to advise the farmers on the suitable crops to cultivate and the type of farm inputs to apply in their farms.
“The results of the mapping will guide us on the recommendations to the government on the suitable fertiliser to be procured for each region or county. From there, we are aiming at improving food production by guiding the individual farmer at the ward level on the type of fertiliser and other farming inputs to use,” said Njeru.
Njeru said that the agency is planning to employ technology to conduct the survey, which is expected to be concluded by March this year.
He said that in addition to using mobile phone applications to register farmers on a digital platform, the results of the soil survey will also be relayed digitally using Short Message Service (SMS).
“The results and the recommendations from KALRO will be sent to the farmers and the agripreneurs’ mobile phones in the form of an SMS. This will help in creating a link between the farmers and agripreneurs so that if there is an issue, the farmers can be linked with the extension officers at the county level,” he said.
By Wangari Mwangi and Geofrey Chaura
