Malawi Stakeholder Workshop Report: Establishing an ecosystem of soil data-driven services
In 2024, CIFOR-ICRAF and Varda piloted a soil knowledge exchange initiative in Kenya and Tanzania, funded by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD). The pilot focused on identifying barriers and opportunities for building a collaborative soil data ecosystem and directly shaped the design of this project.
Building on the pilot initiative, CIFOR-ICRAF and the Varda Foundation, with support from NORAD, are now launching a new three-year initiative to create a dynamic ecosystem of soil data-driven services across Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, and Tanzania. The initiative seeks to create a scalable collaborative platform that facilitates the exchange of soil data, information, and knowledge among key stakeholders, including researchers, policymakers, youth and women organizations, farmers and pastoralists, conservation organizations and agri-food private sector companies. A central focus of the initiative is the creation of a comprehensive soil data infrastructure that will support the development of data- driven soil information services tailored to meet the specific needs of stakeholders in Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, and Tanzania.
The World Agroforestry (ICRAF) and Varda Foundation organised a one-day stakeholder consultation workshop in Malawi on 10th December 2025. The workshop aimed to bring together key partners to understand the soil health ecosystem in Malawi, including mapping existing soil health initiatives in the country, identifying and prioritizing use cases for soil health data and introduce the Soil Hive Platform. The workshops brought together a diverse range of stakeholders from across Malawi with over 30 participants attending the workshop. Participants included representatives from Government ministries e.g. the ministry of agriculture, research, academia, NGOs, youth organisations including Young Professionals for Agricultural Development (YPARD). Department of Agricultural Research Services, the national agriculture research institute in Malawi was also represented.
