Land suitability analysis of main crop soybean (glycine max L. merrill) cultivation in Turkey through the multi criteria decision making method

Maximum productivity and quality in agricultural lands could only be possible through choosing suitable lands for the crops to be cultivated. Suitable land concept encompasses a number of elements including soil, topography and climate. Methods involving the evaluation of all these factors bring about successful land planning. Multi criteria decision making method is one of those methods. Within this framework, the most suitable lands for main crop soya cultivation was assessed using “multi criteria decision making method” by considering soil, topography and climate criteria, within which Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) technique was employed in determining the weighted impact of each criterion. Besides, by employing another multi criteria decision method, the Weighted Linear Combination (WLC) method, land suitability classes where the main crop soya can be cultivated, were determined. According to those assessments, 22.34 % of the study area corresponding to total 17 435 102.53 hectare is very and medium suitable for soya cultivation, about 15.56 % (12 149 689.64 ha) of the study area is less suitable and about 62.10 % (48 473 207.83 ha) of the study area is not suitable. These results suggest that very and mid suitable areas should be used for domestic soya agriculture as the main crop in order to supply annual domestic soya demand to prevent the import