ABOUT OUR WEB-BASED APPLICATION SYSTEM
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THE BACKGROUND
Agricultural modernization is a solid and important foundation of every nation. It is the power source of sustained and healthy development of a country and long period of economic stability. Thus, the Government of Canada is providing funds to support the sector budget of Modernizing Agriculture in Ghana (MAG) Program, to facilitate the government’s initiative to achieve the transformation and modernization agenda of the country’s agricultural sector. MAG has an ultimate goal of developing a modern, equitable and sustainable agricultural sector that contributes to food security and improved nutrition. One of the intermediate outcomes is increased adoption of relevant production-enhancing technologies by farmers and increased adoption of market-oriented approaches to farm management, by farmers and other agriculture investors. These production enhancing technologies are to be developed and made available by the CSIR through its relevant Institutions. The SRI, being one of the Institutions was tasked to transform all analogue soil information in Ghana into digitized format and come out with an Interactive Soil Web-Based Application Platform. Currently, soil information/soil data acquisition and sourcing of soil resources information remotely have been and continue to be challenging, militating against information/data sharing relative to soil resources of Ghana.
Objective of the Project
Therefore, the objective of this project is to develop and host all information on soil resources of Ghana online to enhance soil information/data accessibility and acquisition in the country and worldwide.
Benefits of the Project
The online platform contains digitized soil maps of specific locations, soil characteristics and appropriate nutrient/mineral requirement for key crops in each agro-ecological zones of Ghana.
- With the platform, information on soil nutrient availability, soil physical properties, fertility limitations, soil suitability for selected crops could be accessed;
- Soil management recommendations, strategies and limitations, etc. are brought to the door step of farmers (small, medium and large scale), frontline field staff and MoFA officers, Officers from the Department of Agriculture and other stakeholders, through the internet;
- Information on selection of suitable soil physical and chemical characteristic for cultivation of crops can be found by the click of the button;
- Estimation of fertilizer requirement for a given area could be known in advance before project implementation;
- Agricultural investors could have a better information and input for drawing business plan.
It is a sustainable decision support system to modernize the soil resources management for increased agricultural productivity, reduced poverty and ensured food security. This will contribute to the realization of MAG objectives, outcomes and long term impacts; ultimately ensuring food security and facilitate the production of agricultural raw materials for industry and agricultural commodities for export.