Title: Economic allocation of farm land for commercial crops – a case study in Kasargod Region of India

Authors: Raveena Suvarna; Sunith Hebbar

Addresses: Department of Humanities and Management, Manipal Institute of Technology, Manipal, Karnataka, 576104, India ' Department of Humanities and Management, Manipal Institute of Technology, Manipal, Karnataka, 576104, India

Abstract: Economic allocation of land is an important activity in agricultural planning. Due to the changing prices of crops in market, it's vital for a farmer to appropriately allocate the land for the various crops to maximise the income. Therefore, this study focuses on allocation of land for commercial crops, namely arecanut, pepper, coconut and rubber. Initially, linear programming technique was applied to determine the optimum crop mix. The results of which is then compared with the traditional method adopted by the farmer. A sensitivity analysis was then performed to determine the optimal capital requirement. Later on to predict the behaviour of the income on a long run a SD model was developed. The factors like market price, cost of crops and weather conditions on yield were considered. The simulation results predicted that by 2030, the income will rise by 59% than the current condition if the suggested crop-mix is adopted.

Keywords: commercial crops; linear programming model; optimisation of crops; system dynamics; India.

DOI: 10.1504/IJOR.2020.110484

International Journal of Operational Research, 2020 Vol.39 No.3, pp.416 - 438

Received: 19 Oct 2017
Accepted: 03 Mar 2018
Published online: 22 Oct 2020 *

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