 Agriculture leaders join hands with their counterparts from the School of Food and Agriculture of the University of the West Indies, the Food and Agriculture Organization, Jeff, the OECS Secretariat and the Partnership Initiative for Sustainable Land Management, in launching the start of the Sinnushan National Soil Survey, an undertaking which will see forestry and extension services officers, as well as soil health research and engineering evaluating soil found in 125 locations island-wide in the coming weeks. Sintusha being the first country in the OECS to conduct a national soil survey in about 40 years will be set in the stage, creating a model from which participating countries under the Soil Care Project can replicate. Project Manager of the Soil Care Project, Trevor Thompson says, the soil information derived from the survey will be of tremendous importance to local agriculture development, as it will give real-time data to inform strategies to address a myriad of concerns from land degradation to food security. The outputs of this exercise will be many and will impact the next generation with state-of-the-art soil maps that will provide data on organic content and many other parameters. This data will guide decision making at the policy level, at the department and at the technical levels. Agriculture Minister Hon. Alfred Prosper in applauding the move to gather the most recent information on soils throughout the region says, this exercise is opportune as the ministry augments interventions to support healthy food systems in Sintusha. The last documented soil survey conducted in Sintusha was completed in 1966. Our farmers continue to complain that the soils, the agricultural areas, the soils are acidic. I'm not sure how true it is, but our farmers have been using quite a bit of inorganic fertilizers and that seemed to be causing the soils, especially in the banana plantations, to become acidic. We must do something about it if we have to protect our food security because we depend on soils for our food security. Over the next two weeks, the soil survey team will be engaged in soil mapping and visits to the intervention sites where measurable rehabilitative work will be implemented. From the communications unit of the Ministry of Agriculture, this is Amanda Fee-Clock reporting.