CROP SUITABILITY MAP OF BUKIDNON

Introduction

Philippine has a total land area of 30 million hectares. More than half of it has a slope

steeper than 18% (Escano and Tababa, 1998) however, many upland farmers have even

expanded and occupied higher areas for cultivation.

Among the productive upland areas is Bukidnon. It is one of the crop producing

provinces in the Philippines. Despite by being occupied by gently rolling grassland plateau, it

was considered as food basket of Mindanao and known to biggest pineapple plantation.

Utilizing crops that are suited in the area, given the soil and environmental condition can be

of great help to improve production. This idea cannot be easily achieved without sample soil

information. Thus, fast and efficient way of generating necessary information in a large scale

must be innovated. It is in this context that this study has been conceptualized and conducted.

It introduced the use of GIS in agricultural aspect as tool in spatial data analysis, integrated

with extracted soil data to come up with the outputs maps informative to the

farmers/landowners.

There has been previous study in selecting suitable crop using personal computer

wherein soil condition, climatic condition , geological and geomorphological condition and

list of bibliography have been used as determining factors (Kato, 1993). In this research

however, aside from the factors mentioned above, biological requirement of each plant for

growth were identified and utilized to find out specific crops suited in a certain area. This

study has generated various map that can provide information about the agricultural land

condition and recommended type of crop suited in the sloping area based on the given soil

and climatic condition to optimize the use of a piece of land.

Objectives Of the Study

The general objectives of the study is to map the crop suitability in Bukidnon. The

specific objectives where to:

1. Use table query

2. Analyze maps in vector format

3. Convert maps into grid format

4. Analyze map and database in raster format

5. Overlay maps in raster format

Materials and Method

1. Set the Data Frame Properties > Coordinate System > to WGS 1984 UTM Zone 51N.

2. Add the layers Provinces, LandCover_w84, SlopeClass_w84 and philsoil_Project from the

directory.

3. Open the Attribute Tables (right click on the layer, then select Open Attribute Table) of

each layer to familiarize yourself on its contents.

4. Change the layer name of layers LandCover_w84, SlopeClass_w84 and philsoil_Project to

land cover, slope and soil type, respectively.

5. Label the layer Provinces (name of province).

6. Select a province (ex. Bukidnon).

7. Make the symbol of the layer Provinces to Hollow. (sample output was shown below)
8. On the Table of Contents, right click on layer Provinces > Data > Export Data.

9. The Export Data window will appear. On Export > select Selected features; then select on

this layer’s source data; on Output feature class > browse to directory or folder (ex.

exercise_output) that you want to save your output then save the file (ex. Pampanga_prov).

Then click OK.

10. A pop-up window will appear. Click Yes.

The provincial boundary of your selected province (ex. Bukidnon_prov) will be added to

your Table of Contents and on your Map Display window.

11. Clip the layers land cover, slope and soil type to Provinces or to the province that you

exported previously (ex. Bukidnon_prov). (For details see Exercise 2 for clipping features).

12. You can rearrange your map display by clicking and dragging the layers on the Table of

Contents. Make your exported province (ex. Bukidnon_prov) symbol to Hollow. Unchecked

other layers for you to visualize clearly the clipped output.

13. On Geoprocessing menu, select Union. The Union window will appear.
14. On Input Features, select the clipped soil type and land cover (ex. buk_soiltype and

pam_landcover). On Output Feature Class, browse to directory or folder (ex. exercise_output)

that you want to save your output then save the file (ex. buk_union). Then click OK.

15. A union layer (ex. buk_union) will be added to your Table of Contents and on Map

display window. Open its Attribute Table.

16. On the attribute table, click the Table option icon. Select Add Field.

17. The Add Field window will appear. On Name > type Category; on Type dropdown menu

> select Text. Click OK.

18. A new field (ex. Category) in the Attribute Table will be added.

19. Still on the Attribute Table; click on Select by Attributes icon. On Select by Attributes

window; Method > select Create a new selection; on section SELECT*FROM > input the

condition that you want to select on the table. Click on Get Unique Values button to view the

content of the field that you’ve selected above

Below is a sample expression: Example:

"DESCRIPT" = 'Arable land, crops mainly cereals and sugar' OR "DESCRIPT" = 'Crop land

mixed with other plantation' OR "DESCRIPT" = 'Cultivated Area mixed with

brushland/grassland' AND "SOILDESC" = 'Antipolo clay' OR "SOILDESC" = 'Arayat clay

loam' OR "SOILDESC" = 'Bantog clay loam' OR "SOILDESC" = 'Bigaa clay loam' OR

"SOILDESC" = 'Buenavista clay loam' OR "SOILDESC" = 'Candaba clay loam' OR

"SOILDESC" = 'San Fernando clay' OR "SOILDESC" = 'San Fernando clay loam'

20. Click on Verify button to check if the expression is correct.

21. Once you’re done, click Apply. The condition that satisfies your expression will be

selected on the table.

22. Right click on new field (Category) > select Field Calculator.

23. On Field Calculator window, at section Category = > type “Highly Suitable” or any

description that you want. Click OK.

24. Automatically the word Highly Suitable will be typed on the selected row or data.

25. Do other expressions that will satisfy for the category “Suitable” and “Not Suitable”.
26. Once you’re done, you can now Close the attribute table.

27. On the Table of Contents, open the Properties of the layer union (ex. pam_union).

28. On Symbology tab > Show > Categories > Unique values. On Value Field > select

Category; select your color combination on Color Ramp; then click on Add All Values

button. If you’re done, click Apply/OK.

A sample output of the analysis is presented below.
Conclusion

Generating crop suitability map however was conceptualized to correct conventional

practices of planting crops wherever the farmers preferred ecological niche. Favorable

environmental condition is a factor beyond our control but need to be consider in growing

crops. Worthy to note that this research has also discovered other site potentially available for

agriculture and determined which specific plants are applicable in a certain part of the

province given the prevailing environmental condition and soil fertility.

A thorough study in this regard is suggested however in order to get more detailed

information that could be beneficial to the farmers and general public to include

administrators, land planners and stakeholders, etc.

Reference

Bukidnon Province, (2003): Socio economic profile, pp. 4

Escano, C. R., and Tababa, S. P., (1998): Fruit Production and management of Slope Lands
in the Philippines.
Kato, Yoshitake (1993) The expert system for selecting suitable crops using personal
computer.