Composed of 18 barangays, San Carlos City is blessed with rich agricultural land, a strategic location and a natural harbor protected by Refugio Island (Sipaway).

More than 31,000 hectares of its total land area of 45,150 hectares are rich agricultural lands, a large portion of which are crop lands planted to staple crops like rice, corn, sugarcane and such high-value crops, as cabbage, carrots, coffee, and others.

These areas, comprising about 69 percent of the total land area, are classified as agricultural under the city's land use plan.

The rest are classified into non-agricultural and and protected forest areas. The non-agricultural areas covering the 4,995 hectares are for mixed use such as residential, commercial, industrial, institutional, tourism, recreational and built-up purposes.

The remaining 8,970 hectares are protected forest areas that are part of the Kanlaon National Park and the Northern Negros Forest Reserve.

A lowland agribusiness scheme will be developed in the larger plantation environments of the coastal areas to demonstrate the profitability of high value of plantation crops as more commercially viable option to traditional sugar cane farming.

An upland smallholder farming scheme will organize and develop the commercial potential of the upland farms.

The initial emphasis will be on vegetables production, to be followed by other high value crops. There will then into packing houses for processing or distribution.

The Quezon - Codcod plateau is chosen as the first are for upland scheme.

A reforestation and watershed management scheme will be developed in mountain areas. Commercial plantation forestry will be introduced in tandem with community based mixed forestry/inter-planting. Initial investment is proposed on the Rizal, Palampas and Bagonbon mountain slopes.