Identification of suitable sites for organic farming using AHP & GIS

Abstract

Uttarakhand is covered with 64.76% of its area under Himalayan forest providing the exquisite biodiversity and differences in climate with a miscellany of flora and fauna. Therefore creates great scope for the development of organic farming in rural areas to boost the rural economies. But organic farming is not very much evolved in this state due to lack of adequate transportation services and other socioeconomic reasons. Remote sensing and GIS can play an important role in the identification of the suitable zones for the development of organic farming in more facile manner. In this paper a methodology is proposed to identify the suitable zones in the state for the development of the organic farming using Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Geospatial techniques to boost rural economies and promote rural tourism to make self-sustainable villages. This study represents the efficacy of AHP and weighted overlay model for the site suitability analysis of organic farming in the study area.

Keywords

• Organic farming
• AHP
• GIS
• Rural tourism
• Site suitability