Timely insights are pivotal in making data-driven decisions and implementing sustainable land management strategies tailored to diverse geographical and climatic contexts.

Lately, soil has evolved from being merely technical to becoming a strategic enabler, crucial for achieving climate neutrality and sustainable food production. Over the last decade, both private and public entities have prioritized soil, with the former developing products and services for enhanced land and crop management, and the latter crafting policies to protect and restore this vital yet delicate resource. However, these efforts need a shared soil data infrastructure for efficient soil monitoring and effective policy implementation. 

That’s where SoilHive comes in, a practical resource for those working with soil data, fostering collaboration, and advancing soil research efforts. 

 

The Power of Open Soil Data Culture 

Accurate and timely soil data play a pivotal role in understanding and enhancing soil health. Despite the availability of data today, there is no common platform providing comprehensive access to researchers, policymakers, companies, farmers, and public bodies to soil data across different geographies. Soil data remains fragmented and limited by data privacy and market competition, creating a bottleneck that hampers global policy action and integrated strategies for defining and protecting "healthy soil" across diverse geographies. 

Moreover, this data gap disproportionately affects low-income countries and regions, particularly smallholder farmers who often lack access to data-driven services despite being the primary contributors to our food supply. 

Quality-assessed, interoperable local, national, and regional soil data would represent a strategic asset, informing analyses and decisions for sustainable soil management and beyond. Improved data-driven recommendations could significantly enhance efficiency and return on investment for both public and private sectors, benefiting farmers and stakeholders alike. 

SoilHive is as a free data platform, combining public and private soil data sources into a single accessible data hub. Operating as a public library, SoilHive enables anyone to openly discover, access, compare, and visualize soil data gaps across the world. It has three core modules:

Discoverability Module: 

• Users access an interactive heatmap map for visualizing soil data availability across different areas. 

• Filters allow users to refine data based on agroecosystem, properties, data types, and time before downloading the data in one click.

• SoilHive wants to acts as a mirror to what is available on the market, giving the possibility to reuse existing data to create new insights 

• SoilHive facilitates data download from multiple datasources, clipping the data based on your area of interest.  

Data Discoverability: the user can easily discover and access all the data available for the region of interest.

 

Comparison Module: 

• Compare data from different sources by selecting one or two locations and a parameter of interest. 

• Visualize the variation of a property of interest across different datasets and time periods in a tabular format. 

Comparison Feature: Compare Soil Organic Carbon Data across multiple data sources in one location of interest. 

 

Data Donation Hub: 

• Promotes collaboration and knowledge exchange by allowing users to contribute private soil datasets. 

• Be part of the solution.

Donation Hub.

 

The Path Forward: A Collaborative Future 

SoilHive's mission is to expand access to fragmented and invisible soil data for public and commercial purposes, serving as a catalyst for global collaboration in advancing the nature-positive agenda. 

For a systemic change towards eco-friendly practices, the collaboration of farmers, agribusinesses, and governmental organizations is essential. SoilHive provides a collaborative platform where stakeholders can work together to ensure the longevity and sustainability of farming practices.

For additional information visit the SoilHive website.