By ‘Wole Fatunbi
Between October 13th to 15th 2025, the Africa Agricultural Research Innovation and Education Institutions (AARIEI), led by FARA, organized an engagement meeting with land-grant Universities in the USA to broker a partnership to support the implementation of the Soil Initiative for Africa (SIA). The three-day workshop was held at the Agronomy complex of the Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas, USA.
About 112 Universities in the USA fall under the land-grant universities model and have evolved over decades with advanced science, knowledge, and technologies in different areas of Soil and land management. With the increasing interest and effort towards managing African soil for productivity and ecological services, demonstrated in the development of the Soil Initiative for Africa (SIA) and the Africa Fertilizer and Soil Health Action Plan (AFSH-AP).
The AARIEI comprises of FARA, AFAAS, CORAF, ASARECA, CCARDESA, NASRO, and RUFORUM. Its focus is to foster strong contributions of science, extension, and human capital development to advance African agriculture. The AARIEI organization plays a strong networking and practical implementation role in all the continental frameworks and instruments developed to advance African agriculture.
Strong partnerships with advanced laboratories and institutions will play a key role in delivering the desired outcomes of the AFSH-AP and the SIA. Apparently, the framework requires the provision of proven technologies as solutions to known and emerging technological issues. Fostering partnerships to leverage existing knowledge and technologies for a quick solution is cost-effective. Partnership is one of the fundamental principles for implementing the SIA and the AFSH-AP. It will prevent the “reinvention of the wheel” syndrome in the search for knowledge and technologies as solutions to problems.
The Kansas meeting entails presentations from African organizations such FARA, AFAAS, RUFORUM, Sasakawa Africa Association, AGRA and IFDC. Other presentations were made by land-grant universities in the USA to explore existing partnership opportunities. The meeting plans to advance the discussion to develop a joint project for mutual benefit and jointly source funding on soil health, fertilizer manufacture management, and utilization for productive agriculture and ecosystem services. Other areas of joint interest are the human capital development on soil health and extension services. The pertinent subject of the digital soil health advisory instrument, combining soil information, climate, and agronomic data, was topical.
This effort is one additional step to fast-track the implementation of the SIA and the AFSH-AP.
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