| dc.description.abstract | The oil palm tree (Elaeis guineensis Jacq.) is one of the world's most important tropical tree crops,
from the Euphorbiaceae family. Oil palm is being adopted by many countries in the world because
it is high yielding in nature and has many uses such as a source of palm oil, palm wine, roofing
(leaves), building material (trunk), and medicines (roots). Due to its increased demand, many
countries have adopted oil palm growing because of its positive economic benefits which has led
to reduction of poverty rates. This has enabled the achievement of the first and eight sustainable
development goals which are no poverty and decent work and economic growth respectively.
The Government of Uganda plans to extend the oil palm project to Northern Uganda under the
second phase of the National Oil Palm Project. According to the Final Project Design Report
(2017) of the National Oil Palm Project, areas in Northern Uganda have been mapped for the
project based on the rainfall, soil and temperature of the region but no detailed information of the
area’s degree of suitability is provided. This research project employed Remote Sensing and
Geographical Information Systems (GIS) methods which are fast, cheap and accurate to determine
the degree of suitability of the region for oil palm growing.
Besides the rainfall, soil and temperature parameters that were used to map the areas for the second
phase of the oil palm project, other parameters such as landcover, elevation and slope required for
the effective of oil palm were identified through literature review. The datasets were obtained from
both online and offline databases and they were in either raster or vector format. The vector
datasets were rasterized in ArcMap 10.8. Pre-processing was carried out on the data where the data
was transformed to one coordinate system (WGS__1984_Arc 1960/UTM_ Zone 36N) and
clipped. The data was then reclassified into four classes that is, highly suitable (S1), moderately
suitable (S2), marginally suitable (S3) and unsuitable (N), using the Reclassify tool in ArcMap
10.8. Using the AHP, pairwise comparison matrices were constructed and the weight of each
parameter computed. Suitability map was generated using weighted overlay tool. The results of
the overlay identified 38.18%, 35.54%, 21.41% and 4.87% of the land area were highly suitable,
moderately suitable, marginally suitable and unsuitable respectively. The highly preferred districts
for oil palm growing are; Adjumani, Amuru, Lamwo, Nwoya, Gulu, Oyam, Kole, Pader, Otuke,
Alebtong, Lira, Dokolo, Amolatar and Apac. | en_US |
