Title: A DSS for planning the agricultural production

Authors: Thomas Bournaris; Jason Papathanasiou

Addresses: Department of Agricultural Economics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki 54124, Greece ' Department of Marketing and Operations Management, University of Macedonia, Agiou Dimitriou 49, Edessa 58200, Greece

Abstract: In this paper, the agroPLAN decision support system (DSS) presented; agroPLAN is a DSS for the planning of agricultural production agricultural holdings or in agricultural areas. It is one of the main farm management applications of the agroGOV.gr portal. The utilisation of the agroPLAN DSS supports the farmer-manager in the difficult process of farm management and decision-making. In particular, agroPLAN simulates different scenarios and policies and proposes alternative production plans. It is based a multicriteria mathematical programming model and can achieve the optimum agricultural production plan in a farm or in an agricultural area combining different criteria to a utility function under a set of constraints concerning different categories of land, labour, available capital, etc. The objective of this application is to help the farmer-user to gain control of the external environment with easy access to knowledge and information.

Keywords: DSS; decision support systems; agricultural planning; farm management; farming; farmers; agriculture; multicriteria analysis; AgroPLAN; production planning; agricultural holdings; Greece; agricultural areas; agroGOV; e-government; electronic government; internet; world wide web; web portals; farmer-managers; decision-making; scenario simulation; policy simulation; alternative plans; mathematical programming models; utility functions; constraints; land; labour; available capital; farmer-users; external environment; knowledge access; information access; business innovation; R&D; research and development.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBIR.2012.044259

International Journal of Business Innovation and Research, 2012 Vol.6 No.1, pp.117 - 134

Published online: 12 Dec 2014 *

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