ISRIC joins CIMMYT in building a soil intelligence system for India

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has funded the development of a Soil Intelligence System (SIS) for three states in India, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and Odisha, to support better decision-making in agriculture. The project will develop comprehensive soil information at scale and build accessible geospatial information systems, following FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable) principles.

Farmers will benefit from more reliable soil health management recommendations aimed at increasing yields and profits. The SIS will also be useful to state partners, extension workers and agricultural development institutions, the private sector and other stakeholders that require quality-assessed soil information. Further, scientists and researchers will receive training in modern soil analytics and SIS use.

The SIS initiative is led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT) in collaboration ISRIC – World Soil Information , the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), the Andhra Pradesh Space Applications Center as well as the state governments and state agriculture universities of Bihar and Andhra Pradesh.

ISRIC is responsible for coordination and technical leadership for the digital soil mapping, ‘targeted’ sampling-related activities and the back-end design of the Soil Intelligence System.