Sustainable planning of agricultural production

Abstract

This paper presents a model for sustainable planning and optimisation of agricultural production. The model is a mathematical programming model, based on multicriteria techniques, and can be used as a tool for the analysis and simulation of production plans, as well as for the study of impacts of the various policies in agriculture. The model can achieve the optimum production plan of an agricultural region combining in one utility function different conflicting criteria as the maximisation of gross margin and the minimisation of fertilisers used, under a set of constraints for land, labour, available capital, common agricultural policy, etc. The proposed model was applied to the four prefectures of the region of Thessaly, in central Greece. The data needed resulted from the research project entitled ‘Sustainable management of soil-water sources of Thessaly aiming at the optimum agricultural production (SMaRT)’ funded by EEA grants. In all prefectures, the optimum production plan presents greater gross return, less fertilisers used, and less irrigated water used than the existent production plan.