Testing the health of African soil with new technology

Many people across Africa depend on agricultural land for their livelihoods but land degradation and soil erosion is widespread. Now a new process of using infra-red light to analyse soil samples can help to give an understanding of the key drivers of poor soil health.

Leigh Ann Winowiecki is Co-leader of the Restoring Degraded Landscapes Research Theme at CGIAR's Water, Land and Ecosystems (WLE) research program based in Nairobi, Kenya. She is one of the developers of this new technology.

(Photo: A researcher analysing soil samples. Credit: Ann Wavinya /CIFOR-ICRAF)