Integrating Data and Disciplines to Advance Sustainable Land Management – Capital Newspaper

Report on the Land, Soil, and Crop (LSC) Hubs Initiative

Project Overview: A Data-Driven Approach to Sustainable Agriculture

The Land, Soil, and Crop (LSC) Hubs project, coordinated by ISRIC, represents a significant advancement in agricultural data management in Ethiopia and partner countries. The initiative addresses the critical challenge of fragmented data systems by creating a technical and organizational framework to integrate and share vital agricultural information. By linking disparate datasets on soil, crops, land, and climate, the LSC Hubs directly support evidence-based policymaking and climate-resilient farming, making substantial contributions to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Strategic Alignment with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Core Contributions to Global Agendas

• SDG 2 (Zero Hunger): The project directly targets sustainable agriculture by providing actionable data to improve soil fertility, optimize fertilizer use, and increase crop productivity for small-scale farmers.
• SDG 13 (Climate Action): By integrating climate data and monitoring soil organic carbon, the LSC Hubs enhance both climate change adaptation strategies for farmers and mitigation efforts through improved land management.
• SDG 15 (Life on Land): The initiative focuses on sustainable land governance by monitoring soil health and identifying land degradation hotspots, thereby informing policies to protect terrestrial ecosystems.
• SDG 17 (Partnerships for the Goals): The project’s success is founded on a multi-stakeholder partnership model, uniting international bodies, national government institutions, research centers, and local communities to achieve common goals.

Implementation, Challenges, and Key Learnings

Overcoming Operational Challenges

The five-year implementation phase faced several significant challenges, which were navigated through adaptive management and strong partnerships:

1. Global Pandemic: The project commenced during the COVID-19 pandemic, which initially restricted physical meetings and direct engagement. This was overcome through persistent communication and intensified engagement once conditions improved.
2. Institutional Gaps: A primary challenge was the disconnection between agricultural research, information systems, and extension services. The LSC Hubs successfully bridged this gap by creating a network of information providers and users.
3. Security Concerns: Operating in a country with security issues required close collaboration with national partners like the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR) and UN security officers to ensure safe implementation.

Fostering Partnerships for the Goals (SDG 17)

A central lesson from the project is that its achievements were only possible through robust collaboration. The partnership between international and national organizations was crucial. Instead of creating new systems, the project focused on analyzing and building upon existing initiatives in Ethiopia, demonstrating an effective and non-duplicative approach to development cooperation.

Policy Impact and Sustainable Governance

Informing National Policy for SDG 2 and SDG 15

The LSC Hubs are designed to directly influence and refine national agricultural policies in alignment with sustainable development objectives.

• Fertilizer Policy: The integrated data helps create tailored fertilizer recommendations and blends suited to specific local conditions, supporting a more efficient and sustainable national fertilizer policy.
• Land Management: By monitoring soil health and land degradation, the hubs provide critical data for improving land management plans and policies at both national and regional levels.
• Enabling Data Governance: The project has been significantly empowered by Ethiopia’s recently approved data-sharing policy, which formalizes open data principles and facilitates the hub’s function.

Technical Framework and Data Standardization

A Decentralized Model for Data Integration

The LSC Hubs do not centralize data into a single repository. Instead, the project established a federated system that promotes data sovereignty and accessibility.

• Metadata Standardization: A common metadata protocol was introduced, allowing different data providers to describe their datasets in a uniform format, making them easily searchable.
• Decentralized Data Management: Data remains with the national organizations that manage it, such as the Ministry of Agriculture and EIAR, ensuring institutional ownership and reducing maintenance burdens.
• API-Driven Accessibility: Data exchange is facilitated via Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), which allow users to seamlessly search, link, and integrate datasets from various sources.

Advancing Climate Action (SDG 13)

Supporting Climate Mitigation and Resilience

• Mitigation: The hubs include indicators to monitor soil organic carbon and track changes in carbon stock. This data directly supports national reporting obligations to the UNFCCC on greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture.
• Adaptation: By integrating climate data layers (e.g., changes in temperature and rainfall) with agronomic information, the hubs provide actionable insights for farmers. This empowers them to adapt to future climate scenarios by adjusting planting times and selecting climate-resilient crops.

Stakeholder Engagement and Future Outlook

A Multi-Stakeholder Ecosystem

While farmers are the ultimate beneficiaries, the LSC Hubs serve a wide range of stakeholders through tailored information products.

• End-Users: Data is packaged by “infomeries” for effective dissemination to farmers.
• Government and Policy: Regional and national government bodies use the data for policy development, planning, and resource allocation.
• Private Sector: Private companies can leverage the data to develop and distribute value-added services to their farmer networks.
• Research and Academia: National research entities use the hub to identify research priorities and advance agricultural science.

Scaling for Pan-African Impact

The project’s future strategy focuses on scaling its successful model at two levels:

1. National Scaling: Applying the lessons learned from pilot woredas to expand the LSC Hubs’ coverage across all of Ethiopia.
2. Continental Scaling: Transferring the knowledge and model to other African countries through continental platforms like the Soil Initiative for Africa and regional initiatives within IGAD.

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Addressed

The article on the Land, Soil, and Crop (LSC) Hubs project highlights several interconnected issues that align with the following Sustainable Development Goals:

• SDG 2: Zero Hunger

  The project’s core mission is to enhance agricultural systems. By integrating data on soil, crops, and climate, the LSC Hubs aim to improve farming practices, increase productivity, and support sustainable agriculture, which are central to ending hunger and ensuring food security.

• SDG 13: Climate Action

  The article explicitly states that the hubs support both climate resilience and mitigation. They provide data to help small-scale farmers adapt to climate change and include indicators like soil organic carbon to help organizations report on greenhouse gas emissions, directly addressing the need for urgent climate action.

• SDG 15: Life on Land

  A significant focus of the project is on sustainable land management. The hubs are designed to monitor soil health, track land degradation, and provide data to inform policies that protect and restore terrestrial ecosystems, which is the primary objective of SDG 15.

• SDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals

  The success of the LSC Hubs is built on collaboration. The article emphasizes the partnership between international and national institutions, government bodies, the private sector, and NGOs. It also details plans for knowledge transfer to other African countries, embodying the spirit of global partnership for sustainable development.

Specific SDG Targets Identified

Based on the article’s content, the following specific SDG targets can be identified:

1. SDG 2: Zero Hunger

   • Target 2.3: By 2030, double the agricultural productivity and incomes of small-scale food producers. The article supports this by describing how the LSC Hubs provide “actionable data for farmers” and help create “tailored fertilizer blends” to improve productivity for small-scale agriculture.
   • Target 2.4: By 2030, ensure sustainable food production systems and implement resilient agricultural practices that increase productivity and production, that help maintain ecosystems, that strengthen capacity for adaptation to climate change… and that progressively improve land and soil quality. The project directly addresses this by promoting “sustainable land management,” supporting “climate-resilient farming,” and enabling the monitoring of “soil health and land degradation.”

2. SDG 13: Climate Action

   • Target 13.1: Strengthen resilience and adaptive capacity to climate-related hazards and natural disasters in all countries. The article mentions that the hubs help farmers adapt by providing data on “changes in average temperature, the length of the growing season, and average rainfall,” allowing them to identify “optimal planting and harvesting times, as well as alternative crops.”
   • Target 13.2: Integrate climate change measures into national policies, strategies and planning. The project supports this by providing data that helps “organizations responsible for reporting under the UNFCCC on greenhouse gas emissions” and informs policies related to “climate adaptation.”

3. SDG 15: Life on Land

   • Target 15.3: By 2030, combat desertification, restore degraded land and soil… and strive to achieve a land degradation-neutral world. The article states that the hubs will “monitor soil health and land degradation, identifying hotspots and informing how policies and plans can be improved based on this data.”

4. SDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals

   • Target 17.6: Enhance North-South, South-South and triangular regional and international cooperation on and access to science, technology and innovation and enhance knowledge sharing. The article highlights the “collaboration between international and national organizations” as crucial to success and explicitly mentions a plan to “transfer the project’s knowledge and successful model to other African countries.”
   • Target 17.16: Enhance the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development, complemented by multi-stakeholder partnerships. The project engaged a wide range of “stakeholders—including government representatives, private sector players, NGOs, universities, and development partners” to build the hubs.
   • Target 17.18: By 2020, enhance capacity-building support to developing countries… to increase significantly the availability of high-quality, timely and reliable data. The entire purpose of the LSC Hub is to address “fragmented agricultural data” by integrating “soil data, crop data… land data, and climate data” and making it accessible through standardized catalogs and APIs.

Indicators for Measuring Progress

The article mentions or implies several indicators that can be used to measure progress towards the identified targets:

1. Indicators for SDG 2 (Zero Hunger)

   • Implied Indicator for Target 2.4: The project’s function to “monitor soil health and land degradation” serves as a direct measure for Indicator 2.4.1 (Proportion of agricultural area under productive and sustainable agriculture). The monitoring of soil organic carbon is a specific metric mentioned.

2. Indicators for SDG 13 (Climate Action)

   • Implied Indicator for Target 13.1: The provision of integrated climate data layers, such as “changes in average temperature, the length of the growing season, and average rainfall,” to farmers functions as a measure of strengthened adaptive capacity.
   • Mentioned Indicator for Target 13.2: The article explicitly mentions that the hub includes indicators to support “reporting under the UNFCCC on greenhouse gas emissions, particularly from agricultural sources,” which is a key part of national climate action plans.

3. Indicators for SDG 15 (Life on Land)

   • Mentioned Indicator for Target 15.3: The project’s capacity to “monitor soil health and land degradation” and “track changes in organic carbon stock” directly relates to Indicator 15.3.1 (Proportion of land that is degraded over total land area).

4. Indicators for SDG 17 (Partnerships for the Goals)

   • Mentioned Indicator for Target 17.6: The stated plan to “transfer the project’s knowledge and successful model to other African countries” through initiatives like the “Soil Initiative for Africa” serves as a clear indicator of international cooperation and knowledge sharing.
   • Implied Indicator for Target 17.18: The creation of the LSC Hubs, which integrate and standardize disparate datasets (soil, crop, climate, land) and make them accessible, is a direct indicator of progress in increasing the availability of reliable and timely data for sustainable development.

Summary of Findings: SDGs, Targets, and Indicators

Source: capitalethiopia.com