Geographical Information System Based Multi-Criteria Analysis for Grain Storage Facility Siting in Jalingo Local Government Area, Taraba State, Nigeria

Traditionally, grain storing facilities have been located without any spatial consideration within agrarian Local Government Areas (LGAs) like Jalingo LGA of Taraba State, Nigeria. This has contributed to loss of food security due to post harvest losses. The study developed a model called Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) using Geographic Information System (GIS) for the identification of optimum grain storage facility in Jalingo LGA. Six suitability criteria were tested on Landsat 9 OLI data, a 30 m SRTM Digital Elevation Model (DEM), and other ancillary vector data in ArcGIS Desktop 10.8. The suitability criteria were: land use/land cover, slope, distance to road, distance to river, distance to settlement, proximity to agricultural land. The Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) was employed to determine the weights of the criteria by means of a pairwise comparison. Distance to roads (27.4%) and agricultural land (34.9%) were the most important criteria. The consistency ratio of 0.036 suggested the weighting reliability was acceptable. The study area was classified as Suitable or Highly Suitable for grain storage development with the Weighted Sum Analysis, at about 84.7%. The three potential sites identified and ranked by area: Site A (1,468.80 ha), Site C (722.70 ha), and Site B (325.26 ha) were all within a north-western to central accessibility corridor. The results offer a replicable, evidence-based approach to assist in planning for grain storage and reducing postharvest losses in Jalingo LGA and other agro-ecological areas with similar characteristics.