Land suitability for agriculture
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Summary
Most farms include a range of soil types and topographic features, each with characteristic productive potential and management needs. Many land managers will recognise the need to employ different land use and management approaches on different types of soil and land.
This page will help you understand the inherent and external factors that should be considered when assessing land use suitability.
Inherent soil and landscape factors
Land suitability for agricultural productivity is dependent on several inherent (naturally occurring) soil and landscape attributes, such as soil condition (soil texture, soil fertility, subsoil constraints etc.), topographic features and climatic conditions.
Understanding what these limitations are and their severity may also enable the development of management strategies to overcome them or lessen their impact on agricultural productivity.
Across the agricultural zone, soils and landscapes have been assessed via the State Land and Soil Mapping Program to better understand and map the main soils and their limitations and opportunities to withstand degradation risks and support a range of production land uses. The detailed assessment framework used in this work is described in Assessing Agricultural Land (Maschmedt 2002) and resulted in the mapping of a comprehensive suite of soil and land attributes and land use potential maps for some crops.
External factors affecting land suitability for agriculture
Land suitability should also consider dynamic and background influences such as economics, potential climate shifts under climate change scenarios, pest and disease incidence, water availability (for irrigated crops), social considerations and regulations. For example, infertile land in a low rainfall area may have low production potential, but if the returns from a particular crop are sufficiently high, it may be a better option than another crop with higher productive potential.
Find out more:
- Land use potential mapping and commodity information is available through AgInsight South Australia
Page Updated: May 2026
