CROP SUITABILITY EVALUATION OF CACAO (Theobroma cacao L.) IN BARANGAY SAN JOSE, GENERAL SANTOS CITY USING GIS

Geographic Information System software is widely used in different information analysis stating facts regarding different topics. One of such is the crop suitability analysis which determines the suitability level of the different land areas for a specific use. This study aims to develop a suitability map identifying the land areas suitable for the production of cacao (Theobroma cacao L.) using GIS (Geographic Information System) software. The study was carried out in Barangay San Jose, General Santos City. The economy of the study area depends on the agriculture. Almost every family is depending on the produce of their land. The production of different crops is not sustainable, that is why there is a need to study the crops suited for the land. Three suitability criteria i.e. soil (texture, pH, organic matter, nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium), climate (rainfall, temperature and relative humidity) and topography (elevation and slope) were evaluated based on the opinions of expert agronomist in different agricultural agencies and FAO guideline for rainfed agriculture. An Analytical Hierarchical Process was used to determine relative importance of the different criteria and the resulting weights were used to generate the suitability maps/layers using Quantum GIS software. The results of this study shows that the study area is Highly Suitable to Moderately Suitable in most part but there are some parts of the area categorized as Marginally Suitable to Currently Not Suitable. There is no area identified as Permanently Not Suitable.