Verzichten die Landwirte zu (Un)Recht auf den Einsatz von Optimierungsverfahren?

In this paper we examine the usefulness of optimisation methods for practical farm program decisions. We inspect three Brandenburg cash crop farms over the last five years and find that their total gross margins could have been increased significantly by using optimisation methods. Our ex post planning approach uses the information available to the farmers in the respective planning year and provides us with optimised alternative programs. Taking account of the actual yields and prices in the following year, the total gross margins of the optimised and observed programs are compared. The planning approach includes systematic time series analyses of uncertain gross margins and their correlations in a stochastic programming approach. The variance of the observed program which implicitly reflects the risk attitude of the individual farmer is used as an up-per limit of the optimised program.