Site Suitability For Yam, Rice And Cotton Production In Adamawa State Of Nigeria: A Geographic Information System (GIS) Approach

This paper demonstrated the potentials of GIS technique for mapping and delineating the suitable sites for Yam, Rice and Cotton production in Adamawa State. Site suitability mapping is necessary to create data bank and to guide the farmers in decision making on sites for crop production in the state. The use of GIS for this decision making introduces reliability and saves time with a consequent increase in agricultural productivity. The six criteria that were used for the study include soil, topography, vegetation, temperature, annual rainfall and lengths of rainy season. A combination of Ilwis 3.0 Academics, Arcview GIS 3.0 and Idrisi 32 were used for data capture and analysis. Using Boolean operations on the six criteria, and based on the requirements for each crop, all the areas that met the six conditions were considered “most suitable”. The areas with five conditions were assigned “suitable”, while the areas with four and/or three criteria were considered “just suitable”. The areas that were considered unsuitable are those areas that met no condition or the areas that met only one or two conditions. The study revealed that yam production in the state is “most suitable” in only Ganye Jada and Toungo Local Government Areas (LGA) in the Southern part of the state, covering only 5.05% of the state land mass. Rice is “most suitable” at the central parts of the state, that is, Lamurde, Numan, Demsa, Yola North and South, Girei, Song and Fufore LGAs. “Most suitable”areas for rice cover 34.26% of the state’s area, and 44.06% as “suitable areas”. The ‘most suitable” areas (5.38%) for Cotton are found at the north western part of the state, covering, Guyuk, Shelleng, Demsa, and Lamurde LGAs as well as the central part comprising; Mayo Belwa, Fufore, and Yola South LGAs. “Suitable areas” are found in Yola North and South, Song, Michika, Hong, Gombi Madagali and Fufore LGAs. This work is therefore recommended to be a guide for farmers in selecting their sites for the production of the three crops