This paper presents a regional land-use model that conceives farms as independent agents aiming at maximum individual utility. Farm agents optimize their utility with the help of a linear-programming algorithm that takes into account natural, economic and personal restrictions. Interactions...

‘Farming for Nature’, a relatively new policy instrument being tried out in the Netherlands, is evaluated. The concept has been designed to allow dairy farmers to improve nature conservation on their farms. Under the scheme, no manure, fertilizer, or feed – concentrates or...

This paper analyzes the effects of using product costs derived from an LP-model for managing the salesmen's efforts at a sawmill company. The salesmen are not controlled by sales quota, as is usual, but assessed by the accounting profit they generate. The analysis is realized by a computer...

A matrix growth model suitable for analysis of uneven-aged forest management is developed based on recursive equations represented on matrix form. The equations consist of transition probabilities forming part of application of Markov chain theory, which describe growth between diameter classes,...

Growing industrial and consumer demands are negatively affecting fish stocks, which are increasingly extracted above sustainable levels. Successful management of marine resources through restricted use zoning systems such as reserves and territorial user rights schemes relies on support from...

Livestock rations are formulated to minimize feed cost subject to nutritional requirements for a target performance level, which ignores the potentially substantial cost of disposing of nutrients fed in excess of nutritional requirements. We incorporate nutrient disposal costs into a modified...

The effects of considering variable within-farm soil runoff and leaching potential on costs of reducing nitrogen losses are analyzed for a Virginia dairy. Manure applications may cause nitrogen losses through runoff and leaching because of factors such as uncertain nitrogen mineralization....

Mathematical programming models suit policy makers' needs for assessing impacts of new policies and modellers' needs for new parameters, constraints and activities to represent the phenomenon under study. The AROPAj model aims at taking into account any geographical extension of the European...

A farm model is developed for simulating the potential income change resulting from conversion to organic farming. The model uses conventional farm data, taken from the Belgian FADN. Given the normative character of the model, and the impossibility of calibration to historical conversion...

The increasing importance of measures under the so called "second pillar" of the Common Agricultural Policy of the European Union raises new challenges to decision-makers. The definition and operationalisation of goals as well as the implementation of concrete measures is a complex task....