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.
2 Comments
Applauding a Strategic Partnership: FARA’s Land Grant University Initiative and the Path to Accelerated Soil Health in Africa
I wish to warmly applaud the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) and its partners under the Africa Agricultural Research, Innovation and Education Institutions (AARIEI) for their visionary initiative in brokering partnerships with USA Land Grant Universities to advance the implementation of the Soil Initiative for Africa (SIA) and the Africa Fertilizer and Soil Health Action Plan (AFSH-AP) held at Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas from October 13-15, 2025.
This effort resonates deeply with Africa’s academic and agricultural history. Some of our earliest Faculties of Agriculture in Nigeria were patterned after the U.S. Land Grant model — integrating research, teaching, and extension as a unified approach to national agricultural transformation. Indeed, Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria, where I serve, had a pioneering partnership with Kansas State University that helped shape our institutional framework and capacity for agricultural research and extension excellence.
This renewed engagement with U.S. Land Grant institutions is both strategic and timely. It represents a bold step toward leveraging advanced science, proven technologies, and human capital development to address Africa’s soil health challenges. The initiative will undoubtedly leapfrog the implementation of the SIA by accelerating access to digital soil advisory tools, soil fertility innovations, and sustainable fertilizer management systems.
As Africa commits to restoring its soils for productivity and ecological balance, partnerships like this reaffirm our collective resolve to move from vision to impact — building a future where knowledge, collaboration, and innovation drive agricultural renewal across the continent.
I commend FARA for this strategic move and encourage African institutions to engage fully with this opportunity. History has shown us that such partnerships work. Now is the time to build on that legacy and accelerate Africa’s agricultural transformation through healthy, productive soils.
#FARA #AARIEI #SoilInitiativeforAfrica #AFSHAP #NIFAAS #C4SEAS #SAA #ABU #FOAABU #NAERLS #IAR #LandGrantPartnerships #SoilHealthAfrica #WoleFatunbi #DavidNielsen
Remind us in a future post about the mechanisms that FARA and AARIEI have or are putting in place to facilitate coordination, coherence and convergence in actions around soil health in Africa. An observatory of initiatives in Africa with regular updates could help to move towards a harmonised approach