IPNI Unveils 9 Consortia Websites to Disseminate Information

IPNI SSA program has unveiled 9 consortia websites through the AGRA funded Country level Soil Health Consortia project to disseminate information on soil health, fertilizer recommendations, crop responses to soil fertility amendments, agricultural input and output markets in 8 sub-Saharan Africa countries; Rwanda, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Malawi, Zambia, Mozambique. The websites are linked to the Regional Website which is also features partnering organizations and stakeholders. The websites are intended to compliment the one stop agricultural information centers as a source of national agricultural information and guides for various crops and agro-ecologies. The target beneficiaries include; farmers, extension workers, policy makers, private sector, academic institutions and other agricultural stakeholders. The websites are also linked to the national systems, regional systems and international agricultural institutions to allow users to easily navigate through outputs of the consortia partnering institutions and stakeholders. The project aims at achieving; i) consolidating available data and dis-aggregating it by crops and agro-ecological zones in easily accessible and utilizable formats to facilitate data driven decision making across the entire agricultural production value chain; ii) harmonizing information available for all the key stakeholders to avoid conflicting messages that often confuse farmers, policy makers, extension workers and agricultural industry private sector leading to low crop yields; iii) to package data into informative communication products for use by extension workers, policy makers and private sector actors to drive agricultural transformation; and iv) to make information on what has already been done available at a country level and thus facilitate reduction of duplication of efforts and reduce wastage of resources on projects that are similar to those that have been implemented in the past. The websites will be updated regularly at the country level as the consortia produces more demand and data driven outputs.