Cereal Grain and Soil Micronutrient Data from GeoNutrition Surveys in Ethiopia and Malawi

GeoNutrition project surveys collected 1352 georeferenced cereal grain and soil sample pairs from Ethiopia's Amhara, Oromia, and Tigray regions and 1812 sample pairs from Malawi. Diriba B. Kumssa authored this dataset, which includes 29 cereal grain elemental concentrations and 84 (Ethiopia) or 69 (Malawi) soil elemental concentrations or fractions. The data covers staple crops like barley, maize, sorghum, teff, wheat, finger millet, pearl millet, and rice from smallholder rainfed farms.

Use Cases

• Mapping soil nutrient deficiencies based on georeferenced soil chemistry data.
• Analyzing cereal grain micronutrient content for nutritional studies based on reported elemental concentrations.
• Studying relationships between soil properties and crop mineral content based on paired grain and soil samples.
• Modeling agricultural interventions for smallholder farming systems based on data from rainfed farms.

Strengths

• Includes 3164 total georeferenced sample pairs (1352 from Ethiopia, 1812 from Malawi).
• Reports 29 cereal grain elemental concentrations and up to 84 soil elemental concentrations or fractions.
• Covers multiple staple crops with specific sample counts (e.g., 362 teff samples from Ethiopia).
• Field metadata was collected using a standardized, open-source georeferenced mobile application (KoBoCollect).

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

GeoNutrition project, author Diriba B. Kumssa.

Collection Method

Samples collected from farms under rainfed smallholder systems; elemental concentrations determined via standard wet chemistry digestion, extraction, and analysis.

Geography

Ethiopia (Amhara, Oromia, Tigray regions) and Malawi.