The GNDE seeks to provide a blueprint for a society that is inclusive and compatible with the limits of nature. Some aspects of it need to be improved, especially when we talk about the soil. We are therefore contributing to this effort by providing information on one of its initiatives, which shows how to improve farmers’ awareness of the need to protect soil fertility.
The Global Soil Partnership (GSP) was established in 2012 as a mechanism to develop a strong interactive partnership, as well as enhanced collaboration and synergy of efforts, between all stakeholders involved with soils. The GSP therefore created the Global Soil Doctors programme to promote the establishment of a farmer-to-farmer training system. This is the core of the GSP’s communication effort by transferring the correct information on soil management to the right people: farmers, and through them, other farmers.
The Global Soil Doctors Programme aims to build farmers’ capacity in the practice of sustainable soil management. In this way, it supports governmental agencies and organizations working on agricultural training for farmers. Training will be based on the establishment of demonstration areas and experimental fields by the Soil Doctors. This programme ultimately also aims to help farmers understand the principles of soil science leading to sustainable soil management practices. To achieve this, the farmers receive a set of tools including educational materials, an explanation of soil testing methods (STM) and a soil testing kit (STK) for preliminary soil analyses.
The programme is open to updates on the methods for assessing soil parameters in the STM, and to contributions for the development of new educational materials based on regional or local needs. For this reason there are strong links with universities and soil researchers.
The programme is developed as a two-way learning and exchange process in which the GSP provides countries with an initial set of tools for distribution to farmers, followed by the countries providing the GSP with feedback on the programme, building on practical experiences and local knowledge. In this way, countries that only recently joined the programme and were not involved in its development can still provide the GSP with their input and contribute to the programme’s further development.