On August 17, under the initiative of the FAO office in Ashghabat, Turkmenistan, the Workshop on the tools of the Global Soil Partnership in support to the Central Asia countries initiative for Land Management (CACILM-2) was held in a hybrid format.

The FAO Regional Project titled “Integrated management of natural resources in drought-prone and salt-affected agricultural production landscapes of Central Asia and Turkey (CACILM-2)” is funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF). The project is aimed at the adoption of integrated landscape management approaches and practices that help stabilize and even reverse trends of soil salinization, reduce erosion, improve water capture and retention, increase the sequestration of carbon, and reduce loss of agrobiodiversity, thereby reducing the desertification trend in terms of extent and severity.

The representatives of the Ministry of Agriculture and Environmental Protection, State Committee for Water Resources, Turkmen Academy of Sciences, Turkmen Agricultural University named after S.A. Niyazov, Dashoguz Turkmen Agricultural Institute, Administration of Dashoguz and Akhal Provinces, Scientific Information Center of the Interstate Commission for Sustainable Development of Central Asia made up the audience of 30 people interested in implementing the tools and programmes of the Global Soil Partnership (GSP) at the national and local levels.

Access to soil information in Liberia has many challenges due to inadequate available soil data, poor soil data storage/database management, and insufficient data access infrastructure. In 2021, the Government of Liberia and FAO jointly agreed on the need to overcome these challenges and improve the country’s soil information portfolio through a two-year Technical Cooperation Project, titled "Strengthening soil analysis and information systems in Liberia" (TCP/LIR/3804). It is expected that the TCP will promote informed decisions on soil and agriculture management in Liberia. The FAO’s Global Soil Partnerships (GSP) is providing technical support to the project. 

The Global Soil Laboratory Network (GLOSOLAN) was established in 2017 to build and strengthen the capacity of laboratories in soil analysis and to respond to the need for harmonizing soil analytical data. Harmonization of methods, units, data and information is critical to (1) provide reliable and comparable information between countries and projects; (2) allow the generation of new harmonized soil data sets; and (3) support evidence-based decision making for sustainable soil management. In order to better downscale its activities and to adapt them to the local context, the GLOSOLANis structured into Regional and National Soil Laboratory Networks. National Soil Laboratory Networks represent the first level of the GLOSOLAN pyramid and are established by grouping together soil laboratories operating in the same country, under the leadership of the National Reference Laboratory.

Soil nutrient mapping and monitoring to build resilient agri-food systems

Rapidly increasing fertilizer prices as well as growing food insecurity driven by the global COVID-19 pandemic, current conflicts as well as intensifying climatic patterns have exacerbated the need for informed decision-making based on digital soil mapping and monitoring. Soil maps capture the spatial variability of our soil resources to identify intervention hotspots and guide localized management decisions.  

Five busy days of congress filled with oral presentations, posters, networking and distribution of material