LAND USE
About 36 percent of NEGROS ORIENTAL’s total land area of 540,230 hectares are being devoted to non-forest agricultural production. The next dominant land use is pasture, which takes up almost 20 percent.
SOILS
One can find four (4) groups of soils in Negros Oriental, namely: lowland soils (secondary soils); upland soils; soils of the steep uplands (all primary soils), and the miscellaneous land types. There are 24 soil types distributed throughout the province. However, the most prevalent type, accounting for more than half of the total land area, is mountainous land. The next most widely distributed types include Faraon clay loam steep phase, Tupi silt loam, Faraon clay, La Castellana clay loam, Zamboanguita clay loam, Isabela clay, and Taal sandy loam.
LAND MARKET VALUES
According to a schedule of base unit market values set by the Provincial Board in 2002, the most expensive agricultural lands are those used for prawn or milkfish culture, ranging from P150,000 to P630,000 per hectare. Crop lands with the highest values are sugarcane areas (P70,000/hectare) and irrigated rice fields (P50,000/hectare). The least costly is pastureland, pegged at P10,000 per hectare.