Climatic uncertainty and farm policy: A discrete stochastic programming model for cereal-livestock farms in Glgeria

Abstract

In Algeria, as in the other Maghreb countries, one central target of agricultural policies has been to step up wheat production. This has led in recent years to promoting highly remunerative prices for wheat. Although the wheat growing area has increased to some degree as a result, expected crop intensification has not been achieved. One major reason for this failure is thought to lie in the way farmers take into account climatic variability in their decisions. Using a discrete stochastic programming model, we analysed the effects of climatic variability on production choices for cereal-livestock farms located in the Sidi-Bel-Abbès province.