RETRACTED: Geospatial assessment of potential land suitability for oil palm (Elaeis guineensis Jacq) cultivation in the western parts of Ethiopia

Abstract

The editors have decided to retract this article for the following reasons: The authors classified the land suitability related to rainfall as follows: “Previous study by Abubakar et al. (2023b) classified rainfall into four classes: (1329–1420mm), (1420–1490mm), (1490–1560mm) and (>1560mm) and categorizes as highly suitable, moderately suitable, marginally suitable and not suitable, respectively for oil palm tree cultivation”. In oil palm literature (including the cited article by Abubakar et al.), however, the order is reversed. Ideally, oil palm requires >2000mm of well-distributed rainfall per year. The lower rainfall class is still not entirely unsuitable, but there will be a very strong seasonality in production and yields will not be large. As this misinterpretation affected their entire analysis, the authors have been asked to revise their article accordingly. In the meantime, an expression of concern was published. In the two successive revised versions received, the authors changed only a few paragraphs (about rainfall...), but they did not re-run their analysis accordingly, nor did they change the suitability assessment at all, leading to the same conclusion as before despite reversed precipitation assumptions.