Soil map presented at Soil Conference

(Tetum) Soil is the foundation of agriculture and 2015 is the International Year of Soil. Seeds of Life (SoL) took part in the Soil Conference organized by Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Dili, Timor-Leste on end of July to raise awareness on soil issues in agriculture.

Samuel Bacon, the SoL Cropping Systems Advisor, made a presentation of the digitization of the soil survey of Timor Leste. The data was then used to produce the map “Soils of Timor-Leste, 2015” which provides an introduction to the general soil types found in the country. The map also raises awareness of other determinants of agriculture productivity such as soil orders, pH, iron and zinc deficiency, slope and hydrogeology.

This national soil map will be released soon for download and print

The research section of SoL conducted a major revision of the digitization of data contained in the publication titled “Os Solos de Timor” developed by Portuguese scientists in the 1960s.

This data was digitized by the ALGIS department in Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries (MAF), the University of Hawaii and others. It was then extensively checked by Ted Griffin, a soil survey expert from Western Australia and adjustments were made by the local mapping company, TMap.

“This map is very useful to identify and understand soil texture in each place of Timor-Leste. This will help Ministry of Agriculture very much to make distribution plans for seed or other related issues that will be based on this map, based on soil information”

A total of 208 different soil polygons were mapped using data from 286 soil test locations. From this data, SoL was able to create a national soil map with photos or typical landscapes in each major soil and geology association.

The main feature map is based on soil texture and also indicates rocky areas. This map was formally presented to the Vice Minister of the Ministry Agriculture and Fisheries, Marcos da Cruz at the above Soil Conference.

“Soil is very important for human life. This map is very useful to identify and understand soil texture in each place of Timor-Leste. This will help Ministry of Agriculture very much to make distribution plans for seed or other related issues that will be based on this map, based on soil information, not based on various requests,” said the Vice Minister.

Samuel Bacon, the SoL Cropping Systems Advisor, made a presentation of the digitization of the soil survey of Timor Leste © Yessy Betty/Seeds of Life

During the Soil Conference Dr Claudino N Nabaish from FAO Timor-Leste revealed the result of conservation agriculture technology being researched in collaboration with MAF in Timor- Leste and Patrick Gerard Niemeyer from the University of Hawaii discussed and presented the expected result from the application of conservation agriculture in Timor Leste.

Getting Soil Information

Seeds of Life will soon release soil data and the national soil map for download. This will include: