UK-based international non-profit organisation, the Earth Rover Programme, which currently operated in Colombia, Kenya and the UK, has globally launched its “soilsmology” initiative, to allow even poor farmers to be able to assess their soils accurately, and in a non-invasive manner. And farmers using this technology would also be able to form a global “citizen-scientist” soil data network, using open-source encrypted platforms. The result would be a trusted and shared global soil map.

“It’s really challenging to know what’s going on underneath our feet,” pointed out University of Greenwich Sustainable Agriculture and Biodiversity Professor Jacqueline Hannam, who is part of the Earth Rover Programme. “The Earth Rover Programme’s methods have enormous potential to quantify key soil properties such as depth, bulk density, and water movement – without putting a spade into the ground. This breakthrough is urgently needed to reverse soil degradation and support sustainable management.”

Although essential for the production of food, 75% of the world’s soils were degraded. But, hitherto, monitoring soil health has been slow and expensive, as well as reliant on invasive sampling methods.

To greatly speed up, and massively reduce the cost, of sampling, the Earth Rover Programme has adapted seismological technology and developed a new sensor design for this new application, to which has been added an AI model, developed in-house. The result was a scalable system for monitoring soil health, increased seismic mapping of deep soil moisture, measurement of connected porosity, and the determination of soil texture and soil carbon. Such data was crucial to comprehend the role of soil in crop resilience, water regulation and carbon storage.

“For too long, soil has been dark to us,” affirmed Earth Rover Programme co-founder and environmental journalist George Monbiot. “Despite brilliant work by soil scientists, our understanding remains patchy. The Earth Rover Programme changes that. With a richer understanding of their soil’s qualities and deficiencies, farmers can reduce environmental harm while sustaining yields. In time, we hope this approach will support new biological methods for soil improvement, allowing us to feed the world without devouring the planet.”

The Earth Rover Platform’s technology sent ultra-high-frequency waves through the ground. It employed a next-generation micro electro-mechanical system accelerometer, also developed in-house. (The team has managed to cut the price of this sensor from $1 000, in 2023, to only $10 now, with the aim of reducing it to just one dollar.) Their AI platform was designated ERP-GPT and was designed to convert data into clear guidance for farmers, policymakers and scientists.

The system, developed with support from the Bezos Earth Fund, has moved from proof-of-concept to pilot projects, now under way, developed in cooperation with partners in Colombia, France, Germany, Kenya and the UK. Early results have delivered a fine spatial resolution of 10 cm, and identical setups in the field, in Africa, Europe and South America, have produced consistently high quality and comparable data.   

“Anyone who’s dug a soil pit knows how hard it is to understand what’s happening below the surface,” noted Bezos Earth Fund Future of Food director Dr Andy Jarvis. “The Earth Rover team found a way to read that hidden world without tearing it apart. Better soil knowledge strengthens everything we care about in climate and nature.”