Recently, the Agricultural Trans formation Agency (ATA) organized a workshop to discuss the implementation of its project, Ethiopian Soil Information System (EthioSIS) with stakeholders. While 95 percent of the project has been implemented so far, ATA, in collaboration with partners, has been collecting and disseminating soil information across all the country’s agricultural land to develop soil databases.
The database consists of a map that helps to show the soil fertility situation and the need for fertilizers to be supplied to the regions. The agency collected information about what type of soil fertilizer needed and the information is prepared in the form of a map.
According to Tegbaru Belete, EthioSIS Project Team Leader the project has finalized the soil fertility survey, soil fertility status map productions and fertilizer type recommendation results for seven different regional states and one city administration. Similar tasks for Afar and Somali states will be completed in the coming months.
Besides building the country’s agricultural capacity, the project is set to establish the first soil buffet data in Ethiopia. “We were using only two kinds of fertilizers, Urea and Diammonium phosphate (DAP), that consisted of nitrogen and phosphorous elements which are not recommended for all types of soil. The results of a study show that there are five additional substances that are not found in the soil. It is challenging our agricultural productivity,” he explained.
The agriculture sector in Ethiopia is facing serious challenges due to long-standing practice that the same kind of fertilizer should uniformly be used across varied soil types.
Tegbaru noted that this belief must be changed as Ethiopia has a variety of soil types that have different soil acidity, salinity and other damaging problems that require a variety of fertilizers.
Fertilizers have a great effect in boosting production and productivity. “However, when we compare ourselves with international benc hmark and African countries, we are still a long way to go in using input such as seed and fertilizers,” he stated.
The Ministry of Agriculture (MoA), in collaboration with its key stakeholders, has diversified the import of compound fertilizers, particularly those in the NPS family, in order to make sure that the millions of smallholder farmers have full access to recommended and customized fertilizers.
This is partly in recognition that the capacity of Ethiopia’s five existing fertilizer blending plants with their full capacity may not yet be sufficient to address all customized needs of the entire country. And yet, tailoring fertilizer recommendation rates to different crop and soil types and agro-ecology is required.
To address this, the Ministry has also facilitated the long-term leasing agreement between the farmers’ cooperative unions owning the blending factories and OCP (a morocco based phosphate group) to revitalize the fertilizer blending activity along with the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR) and agricultural caravans to be used to provide recommendations onsite. Establishment of additional fertilizer blending plants, through a public-private partnership, in strategic locations will be another key area to fill the gap, Tegbaru noted.
The continued annual increase in fertilizer use in Ethiopia also requires exploring the possibility of producing fertilizer inputs locally, using local resources. The government of Ethiopia is accordingly supporting a number of feasibility studies and, where viable options seem to exist, encouraging and promoting projects that may be implemented through joint ventures.
This will enhance increased fertilizer use by farmers, and it is expected that the national fertilizer consumption gap that currently exists, when compared to the global average, will be narrowed in the next few years. “We are also encouraged by the growing acceptance and enthusiasm of farmers who have been introduced to customized fertilizers,” he said.
ATA CEO Khalid Bomba stated that at the Woreda and Kebele levels, the digital data supported by a map that helps to show the type of fertilizers needed for the fertile land and for the soil has been distributed to most regions, 95 percent of the data was collected and distributed. The rest would be completed in the next September.
The Ethio SIS Project was launched in 2012 to transform the agriculture sector by improving the fertility of farming soil.
The Ethiopian Herald July 18/2019
BY ESSEYE MENGISTE
