Application of Fuzzy Multi-Objective Programming in Optimization of Crop Production Planning

Planning for the optimal use of productive resources in agricultural systems leads to the conservation in addition to the promotion of farmers’ socio-economical conditions. Being certain or precise in any decision making in agricultural planning is impossible. Fuzzy mathematical programming techniques, developed in recent decades, are the most appropriate and applicable approaches to include the uncertainty in crop planning and productive resources management. Using the multi-objective Fuzzy Goal Programming (FGP) approach, the farming system of a rural region located in the central of Iran has investigated in this study in order to identify the optimal cropping pattern and land use planning under uncertainty. For this purpose, several objectives like maximizing the area under cultivation, net return and employment opportunities and simultaneously the land, capital, monthly water and labor force requirements and availabilities, crop rotation and a crop lower bound production constraint imprecisely considered as fuzzy goals. The needed data gathered through fieldwork operations. In multi-objective programming context, as the results revealed, the constraints of the productive resources are more determinant in land allocation than the objective functions. To illustrate the precedence of the cited FGP model, the results were quantitatively compared with the existing situation and a crisp goal programming model containing the same objectives and constraints. The precedence mainly pertained to the goals of objective functions. The crop-mix in FGP pattern change achieved considerable conservation of water and capital resources and improvement of income generation of the agricultural system, with almost no variation in the cultivation area.