PRESS RELEASE – SOILCARE/SOIL SAMPLING LAUNCH
The Ministry of Agriculture in collaboration with the Partnership Initiative for Sustainable Land Management (PISLM), Global Environment Facility (GEF), the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the University of the West Indies (UWI)- St. Augustine and national stakeholders is executing a national soil survey in Antigua and Barbuda as part of the regional project ‘Caribbean Small Island Developing States (SIDS) Multi-Country Soil Management Initiative for Integrated Landscape Restoration and Sustainable Food Systems: Phase 1 (CSIDS_SOILCARE Phase 1). The 4-year project, which was launched in August 2022 in Antigua & Barbuda involves seven other participating countries namely, Barbados, Belize, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, and Saint Lucia.
Under Component 1, a National Soil Survey will be executed both in Antigua and Barbuda during the period Monday June 5th – Thursday June 22nd, 2023, where 120 soil samples are expected to be collected spanning both Antigua (71) and Barbuda (49) based on digital soil sampling combining soil groups and land use data. The outcome of this exercise will be facilitating technical capacity building within the Ministry and non-state persons and the production of state-of-the-art soil maps that will provide data on soil organic content (SOC) among other indicators that will help improve decision making on Sustainable Soil Management (SSM) and Sustainable Land Management (SLM) issues, crop production, and livelihoods nationally.
UNCCD. These partnerships in collaboration with country governments allows cooperation between developed and developing countries, particularly around knowledge and technology transfer for sustainable land management to meet SDGs. This will assist Antigua & Barbuda in increase its capacity to prioritize measures that will advance integrated landscape management and rehabilitate degraded areas.
The 3-week exercise will commence on Monday 5th June with an official launch at the Ministry of Agriculture Headquarters and our technicians will then begin surveys in Barbuda from June 6th to 10th and in Antigua from June 12th to 21st which will cover the five agricultural districts.
Given the vast number of samples, it is highly likely that some sites may fall on private properties and the sampling team would require access to successfully undertake the activity. In this regard, the Ministry of Agriculture kindly requests the cooperation of the public and private property owners in facilitating the technical project team access to designated sites. Team members will be identifiable with their respective uniforms, IDs, and government issued/branded vehicles.