They say that despite soil's importance, most people in
Africa<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/africa>lack knowledge about it,
partly because information tends to be confined to
academic publications read only by scientists.
"There was an existing database on soil that had not been updated by soil
science experts from Africa, so we asked them to provide us with new
information, which we translated into a form understandable to key
stakeholders," said Arwyn Jones, a member of the soil team at the land
resource management unit of the European commission's joint research
centre<http://ies.jrc.ec.europa.eu/the-institute/units/land-resource-management.html>,
which produced the atlas.
The project began four years ago, and involved experts from the European
commission, the African Union (AU) and the UN Food and
Agriculture<http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/agriculture>Organisation.
The atlas was released at the meeting of the AU and EU
commissions in Addis Ababa last month.