Data sharing guideline

Lack of a data-sharing guideline is one of the obstacles in building an agricultural data repository that can support big-data analytics in Ethiopia. Cognizant of this major barrier and affirming that data sharing should be governed by fair and transparent rules, the CoW has developed the first data access and sharing guideline to govern data sharing and access among its members. Lessons from international trends and practices were used to develop the CoW data-sharing guideline. These experiences were customized toward local contexts, challenges, and opportunities to deliver an effective and efficient instrument that will accelerate data access and sharing.
Link to the document : Coalition of the Willing for soil and agronomy data access, management and sharing (cgiar.org)

National soil and Agronomy data ecosystem mapping

Although soil and agronomy data have been collected in Ethiopia since the 1960s, the data are not available in a standard database. In addition, there is no clear information as to where the datasets are and in what format. This inhibited the efficient use of available data to facilitate data-driven solutions for agriculture. A review by the CoW team showed that 71% of the national datasets are available only in analog format or stored on individual computers, thus risking permanent loss. The CoW’s soil and agronomy data mapping and characterization study evaluated available soil and agronomy datasets according to FAIR data principles. The assessment showed that most of the data fulfill minimal reusability standards and fail to meet the requirements of findability, accessibility, and interoperability.
Link to the document: Identifying, cataloguing, and mapping soil and agronomic data in Ethiopia. (cgiar.org)

National data standards guideline

Interoperability of data is a fundamental challenge in the big-data landscape that undermines data-sharing efforts and hinders the optimum use of available data. Different people and organizations collect data using dissimilar and non-compatible methods and formats. The variation in methods, approaches, standards, etc. is employed in the laboratory analysis stage. The soil and agronomy data mapping and characterization exercise has witnessed this gap and challenge. Cognizant the challenges, CoW developed soil and agronomy data standard guideline for the following six thematic areas:

Agronomy and soil fertility
Soil survey and characterization
Agricultural water management
Soil biology
Laboratory analysis for soil, water, plant, and fertilizer
Integrated watershed management

Soil Atlas of Ethiopia

Ethiopia, land of origins and home of diversity, is characterized by diverse landscapes, climatic, fauna and flora has various soil types with tremendous potential. However, due to a lack of sufficient information on their distribution, potential and limitations, the soil resources of the country are not optimally used. Therefore, CoW supported the development of the soil atlas of Ethiopia to provide basic soil resource information including the major soil types and their distribution using various illustrations.

Soil and Agronomy dataset

Despite the collection of agricultural data in Ethiopia over the last 60 years, there are still enormous soils and agronomy related data scattered across different organizations and only up to 45% of the data holders are willing to share, provided that official request is made, and a centralised digital database containing national soils and agronomy data/metadata is lacking. Consequently, access to soil and agronomy data remains difficult. In response to the challenge, CoW was able to collate and rescue about 39,360 points of crop response to fertilizer data for some major crops across the country. The data was cleaned and harmonized using the latest crop response to fertilizer application dataset template. Link to dataset