Kalro to develop digital soil fertility maps in bid to boost food security

A project aimed at focusing on increasing food production across the country targets to collect 77,969 soil samples from 45 counties.

The project funded by the World Bank, the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization (Kalro) will collaborate with county governments to develop digital soil fertility maps.

Kalro Horticulture Research Institute (HRI) Deputy Director Daniel Gikaara said the project dubbed National Agricultural Value Chain Development Project (NAVCDP) started in 2024 and will end in 2027.

Dr Gikara explained that the multi million shillings project is designed to establish digital soil nutrient maps in the country.

“The maps will be based on different soil attributes like pH that will aid in policy decisions and arm specific recommendations to farmers under different agricultural value chains nationwide,” he said.

Nairobi and Mombasa counties have been exempted from the soil sampling programme.

Addressing agripreneurs recruited to champion the project in Murang’a at Murang’a University of Technology (MUT), Gikara emphasized the need for locals to embrace soil testing.

“Overuse of fertilisers among other farm chemicals has depleted soil nutrients thus leading to poor yields,” said the deputy director.

In the past years, there has been concern over thousands of farmers using fertilisers, without establishing the soil type.

“There is a need for the application of fertiliser to use in their farms be guided by the results of soil sampling by experts,” he said.

The 45  county governments have recruited agripreneurs in every ward who will collect soil samples, and take them for testing at Kalrolaboratories.

“The agripreneurs will be trained on two applications, Maps.Me and KOBO Collect, that will assist in the navigation of the specific soil sampling points, and inputting data on those soil testing sites,” Gikara said.

To perfect the project equipment, 12 Mid Infra-Red (MIR) machines, will be stationed at the Kalro stations.

The soil samples will be collected countrywide after the training from various locations, and analysed to create a national soil spectral library that will create uniformity of results across the country.