nearly optimal linear programming and its application in farm management

linear programming has been employed in many areas of constrained optimization including in agricultural planning for a long time. one of the most important disadvantages of such a method is that there is only one optimum solution for a given objective function and constraints set. another method named nearly optimal linear programming has been developed for solving the problem. this method can simultaneously create more than one nearly optimum solution. therefore, the probability of accepting a plan by farmers will increase because of diversification of the plans. in this study, the method has been explained and applied for a farm located in province of fars. as indicated by the results (by 1 to 10% deviation from maximum affordable profit) it is possible to find very diverse and different nearly optimum combinations of the crop products.