Category Archives: Agricultural OR Books

Prominent text books on the application of Operational Research to Agriculture. #ThisisOR

Farm Planning and Control | Industrial Economics | Cambridge University Press

A comprehensive treatment of farm business and control, with many examples drawn from farming practice.

Although there are many motives for farming, the achievement of a worthwhile financial return, coupled with a good standard of living, ranks high among them. This implies the need for sound business organisation – the more so as holdings become larger, more specialised and more capital intensive. The present book offers a comprehensive treatment of farm business organisation and control. Although designed primarily as an intermediate text for students in universities and agricultural colleges, it is of interest and value to all those concerned with farm business, including business advisers, land agents, accountants and bank managers. The book’s wide coverage is made possible by a mainly non-mathematical presentation coupled with a liberal use of examples drawn from farming practice. The book is divided into four parts: the organisation of resources, the organisation of enterprises, the combination of enterprises and the control of resources and enterprises. The overtaking theme is that, in order to make the most economic use of the resources at his disposal, the farmer has to decide what resources to use, how to organise their use within individual enterprises and how to combine the enterprises into an integrated farming system. Lastly, if these efforts are not to be largely wasted, he must initiate the keeping of suitable records to provide both planning data and a system of checks and controls when his plans are put into practice.

Notice to readers Preface to the first edition Preface to the second edition Selected metric conversion factors Part I. The Organisation of Resources:1. The planning environment and the managerial function 2. Basic principles and concepts of planning 3. The organisation of capital – general 4. The organisation of capital – machinery, buildings and land 5. The organisation of labour Part II. The Organisation of Enterprises:6. An introduction to enterprise organisation 7. Livestock yield and fixed costs 8. Yield, variable costs and optimal feed conversion 9. The selection of feedstuffs 10. The influence of season on livestock production 11. The provision of replacements 12. Crops and cropping Part III. The Combination of Enterprises:13. Principles and procedures in planning enterprise combination 14. Budgeting and programme planning 15. Linear programming 16. Uncertainty and farm organisation and planning 17. Further programming techniques 18. Matrix construction Part IV. The Control of Resources and Enterprises:19. Data recording 20. Data analysis 21. Methods of control Index.

 

Although there are many motives for farming, the achievement of a worthwhile financial return, coupled with a good standard of living, ranks high among them. This implies the need for sound business organisation – the more so as holdings become larger, more specialised and more capital intensive. The present book offers a comprehensive treatment of farm business organisation and control. Although designed primarily as an intermediate text for students in universities and agricultural colleges, it is of interest and value to all those concerned with farm business, including business advisers, land agents, accountants and bank managers. The book’s wide coverage is made possible by a mainly non-mathematical presentation coupled with a liberal use of examples drawn from farming practice. The book is divided into four parts: the organisation of resources, the organisation of enterprises, the combination of enterprises and the control of resources and enterprises. The overtaking theme is that, in order to make the most economic use of the resources at his disposal, the farmer has to decide what resources to use, how to organise their use within individual enterprises and how to combine the enterprises into an integrated farming system. Lastly, if these efforts are not to be largely wasted, he must initiate the keeping of suitable records to provide both planning data and a system of checks and controls when his plans are put into practice.

 

 

Handbook of Operations Research in Natural Resources | Andres Weintraub | Springer

Natural resources has been an application in numerous Operations Research papers; however, there have been few, if any, books that organizes and discusses the OR models in this area

 

Andrés Weintraub is the very top person in Natural Resource research. Moreover, he has an international reputation in OR and a former president of the International Federation of Operational Research Societies (IFORS).

 

Handbook of Operations Research in Natural Resources will be the first systematic handbook treatment of quantitative modeling natural resource problems, their allocated efficient use, and societal and economic impact. Andrés Weintraub is the very top person in Natural Resource research. Moreover, he has an international reputation in OR and a former president of the International Federation of Operational Research Societies (IFORS). He has selected co-editors who are at the top of the sub-fields in natural resources: agriculture, fisheries, forestry, and mining. The book will cover these areas in terms with contributions from researchers on modeling natural research problems, quantifying data, developing algorithms, and discussing the benefits of research implementations. The handbook will include tutorial contributions when necessary. Throughout the book, technological advances and algorithmic developments that have been driven by natural resource problems will be called out and discussed.

 

 

Handbook of Operations Research in Agriculture and the Agri Food Industry| Lluis M. Plà-Aragonés

This book is intended to collect in one volume high quality chapters on Methods and Applications in and considering both theoretical issues and application results. Methods applied to problems in agriculture and the agri-food industry include, but are not restricted to, the following themes:

 

Each chapter includes some standard and traditional methodology but also some recent research advances. All the applications presented in the chapters have been inspired and motivated by the demands from the agriculture and food production areas.

 

Lluís M. Plà-Aragonès is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mathematics at the University of Lleida (UdL) and a Senior Researcher in the Animal Production Area at the UdL-IRTA Center. His research interests include operational research methods applied in agriculture and forest management, with special reference to simulation, dynamic programming, Markov decision processes and production planning. He coordinates the EURO working group called Operational Research in Agriculture and Forest management. He is also a member of INFORMS and EURO.

 

The scope of this book is Operations Research methods in Agriculture and a thorough discussion of derived applications in the Agri-food industry. The book summarizes current research and practice in this area and illustrates the development of useful approaches to deal with actual problems arising in the agriculture sector and the agri-food industry.