Land Suitability for Cocoa Development in South Sulawesi: An Analysis using GIS and Parametric Approach

Abstract

In South Sulawesi, the regional program for prime commodity development has been implemented by the provincial government, as part of promoting regional spatial planning program. In some parts of the region, cultivation of cocoa (Theobroma cacao L.) as prime commodity has long been practiced in different soil environment. Therefore, there is a need for information that will allow land managers to identify both the inherent land suitability, and the spatial distribution of land areas where possible development can be implemented taking into account present land use types. This paper describes a spatial based quantitative suitability evaluation of land for cocoa production. This research was carried out in the one of the cocoa-producing districts in South Sulawesi, District of Luwu Timur. The research project implements land suitability evaluation method based on the spatial-quantitative approaches in Geographical Information Systems (GIS). The main sources of data bases used include digital topographic map, land use map, soil map and soil characteristics derived from available data at reconnaissance level and semi detailed survey, climate data, and satellite imagery. The results of analysis of potential development area for cocoa cultivation show that more than 90 percent of study region are suitable (at S2 and S3 classes) for cocoa cultivation. This study reveals that there are some limiting factors in term of chemical and physical soil characteristics that can still be improved, but there will be almost no limitation in terms of land cover type for cocoa development.