2. International Year of Soils
• The UN declared 2015 as International Year of Soils to raise
awareness of the urgent need to protect the resource that feeds and
waters us
• CIATs global soils research team is working with partners to protect
and restore this vital resource
• CIAT has the largest group of scientists dedicated to soil science in
the CGIAR
• One key strength of CIAT’s group is that we work with
all CIAT research areas to deliver solutions to big
challenges
3. CIAT Soils Research Area
Restoring Degraded Land
Soils and
Climate Change
Sustaining Soil
Fertility
4. Fresh Face in Print and On-line
• Updated soils brief & Webpages
• Increased soils blog activity
Blogs posted Individual visitors
2014: Total: 13 Jan – April: 555
2015: Jan – April: 10 Jan – April: 2,350
5. New Ways to Communicate our Messages
• New products – films & infographics
• Increased social media outreach
9. CIAT at Global Soil Week
Co-hosted 5 key sessions and discussions:
•Mitigation & adaptation to climate change through SLM
•Soil and land information: How to support decision making?
•Soil fertility management: Towards a joint paradigm
•Giving living soil a voice: Approaches and tools
•Down to earth data: Soil and contextual data in landscape
planning and ecosystem services
10. Focus today: Land and Soil Restoration
•Why?: Grand Challenge of the CGIAR with a target of
restoring 190M ha of land by 2030
•Goal: to articulate a unified agenda for CIAT that includes
strength of all Research Areas
invitation
to join the
SOIL FAIR
12. Agronomicefficiency
Current
practice
Germplasm
& fertilizer
+ Organic
resource mgt
+ Local
adaptation
Germplasm
& fertilizer’
+ Organic
resource mgt
Germplasm
& fertilizer
‘Full ISFM’
Move towards ISFM
Increase in knowledge
Integrated Soil Fertility
Management (ISFM)
10 years of
CIAT
research ✔
Soil Rehabilitation in Africa
13. Proposition:
“We have ISFM, no need for more CIAT research to
restore degraded soils”
Do you agree or disagree?
Why?
Is CIAT indispensible or not?
16. Proposition:
“CIAT research is not necessary for success of the
20by20 Initiative”
Do you agree or disagree?
Why?
Is CIAT indispensible or not?
Editor's Notes
Snapshots of activities?
Link to research?
Refreshed for IYS
New soils brief
Now reflects the growing and diverse soils team as well as research on ground. Input from all team members.
Three soils research area themes now better reflect the work we are doing – Restoring degraded land; Soils and climate change; & sustaining soil fertility and health.
Updated web pages, including AfNET
Increased soils blog activity – 320% increase in individual visitors this year compared to the same time last year.
Creating new products to communicate our work
– films, infographics
And increasing our social media output – encouraging team members to share news through their networks and increasing CIAT social media output on soils research
First water fund in Africa launched on 20 March 2015. Partnership with The Nature Conservancy and 9 others. CIAT is the research partner
Facts & Figures:
Tana delivers water to over 9.3 million people, including 1 million farmers upstream and 4 million residents of Nairobi.
The fund will generate US$21.5 million in long term benefits to Kenyan citizens including farmers and businesses.
Launch activities:
News blog
Joint news release with TNC & Burness Communications
Fred Kizito did 4 media interviews, including a live broadcast on CNBC Africa (link http://www.cnbcafrica.com/video/?bctid=4124111152001 – can’t embed as don’t have access to the video)
2 x media trips to Tana River including journalists from SciDev.net, Bloomberg and Christian Science Monitor
Live tweeting from launch event
Shamba Shape Up is an edutainment TV series broadcast in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania that helps farmers shape up their farms with advice from experts. In April this year, Shamba Shape Up was awarded the Sustainable Business Awards 2015 for Innovation by the Guardian for its ‘desire to promote sustainable farming practices, but also offers hope to east African farmers vulnerable to climate change.’
With funding from WLE and CCAFS CIAT has sponsored 5 episodes to reach farmers with important knowledge and information about soils.
Three episodes filmed in Kenya, two filmed in Tanzania. First episode broadcast in Kenya on 28 March 2015. The rest will be screened between May and July.
Shamba Shape Up is watched by 10 million people; this is not a passive, urban audience. Their average land holding is 1-2 acres, and they are in the rural cash economy. Almost 50% are women.
Viewers can request more information by requesting a free leaflet or asking questions about agricultural information during each program.
Research following the first, second and third series of Shamba-Shape Up showed that 89% of 800 viewers surveyed said they had learnt something new and 46% had adopted a new practice or changed their farming, including 22% who improved their soil fertility by using manure or other composting, 2% who took up crop rotation and 11% who started intercropping maize and beans.
Sponsorship outcomes and delivery outputs:
Five episodes featuring soils as a key topic to be broadcast March-July 2015 online and on air in Kenya and Tanzania as well as on DSTV
Short videos of each of CIATs experts in each show
Blog posts and social media outreach to promote broadcast and online films
Our sponsorship of Shamba Shape Up led to a successful Tweet Chat organised by CIAT and Shamba Shape Up .
We invited 5 organisations to join a panel of experts to #TalkSoil and help farmers build healthier soils
The tweet chat attracted interest world-wide and led to a lively and interactive discussion between experts and farmers. It generated nearly 1,000 tweets from 186 participants and reached more than 300,000 people.
Contributors included our 6-strong panel of experts as well as a wealth of Kenyan farmers seeking advice for their soil related issues ranging from protecting their soil from erosion to soil testing.
The panel included participants from Mediae (producers of Shamba Shape Up); Ypard; One Acre Fund; SoilCares Ltd; Syngenta and CIAT.
The tweet chat was followed by the production of 3 Storify’s documenting the full chat.
Tweet Chat guiding questions:
1, What are the challenges smallholder farmers are facing with their soils?
2, How can farmers address these challenges -
– to prevent the health of their soil from deteriorating further?
– to increase their yields and livelihoods?
3, What can they – and we – learn from others?
Many sessions and contributions to full house- over 500 participants from over 80 countries
Social media-
blogs:
http://ciatblogs.cgiar.org/soils/down-to-earth-data/
http://ciatblogs.cgiar.org/soils/farmers-talk-soil/
http://wle.cgiar.org/blogs/2015/04/21/can-africa-afford-to-save-its-soils/
http://ciatblogs.cgiar.org/soils/ciat-at-global-soils-week-2015/
http://wle.cgiar.org/blog/2015/04/17/global-soil-week-2015/
CG feature: http://www.cgiar.org/consortium-news/in-focus-developing-landscapes-for-a-brighter-tomorrow/
Active engagement, presence and reach on twitter and Facebook
Engagement and visibility with many (potential) partners and donors