Application of Geographic Information System and Multivariate Techniques for the Delineation of Farm Typologies

The farming systems in developing countries could be assumed to as heterogeneous due to a variety of factors in the biophysical (e.g. climate, soil fertility, slope, etc.) and socio-economic (e.g. preferences, prices, production goals, etc.) context. The delineation of farm typologies with respect to such smallholding farmers is important to decentralizing the agricultural decision-making process in relation to adoption of the technologies. The study applies geographic information system (land use land cover and change detection study of the identified villages) for the collection of farm data in addition to the biophysical and socio-economic parameters to delineate farm typologies. The identified typologies were further validated by the farmers to identify the best agricultural technologies suiting their context.