Modeling Producer Responses with Dynamic Programming: A Case for Adaptive Crop Management

Published Date
January 01, 2019
Type
Journal Article
Modeling Producer Responses with Dynamic Programming:  A Case for Adaptive Crop Management
Authors:
David Boussios
Paul V. Preckel, Yigezu Atnafe Yigezu, Prakash Dixit, Samia Akroush, Hatem Cheikh M'hamed, Mohamed Annabi, Aden A. Aw-Hassan, Yahya Shakhatreh, Omar Abed Hadi, Ayed Al-Abdallat, Jamal M. Abu Elenein, Jamal Yousef Ayad

Past research found agricultural producers’ conditional responses during the growing season are important adaptations to weather and other stochastic events. Failing to recognize these responses overstates the risks confronting producers and understates their ability to respond to adverse circumstances. Dynamic programming (DP) provides a means for determining optimal long‐term crop management plans. However, most applications in the literature base their analysis on annual time steps with fixed strategies within the year, effectively ignoring conditional responses during the year. We suggest an alternative approach that captures the strategic responses within a cropping season to random weather variables as they unfold, reflecting farmers’ ability to adapt to weather realizations. We illustrate our approach by applying it to a typical cereal farm in Karak, Jordan. The results show that including conditional within‐year responses to weather reduces the frequency of fallowing by 23% and increases expected income by 9%.

Citation:
David Boussios, Paul V. Preckel, Yigezu Yigezu, Prakash Dixit, Samia Akroush, Hatem Cheikh M'hamed, Mohamed Annabi, Aden A. Aw-Hassan, Yahya Shakhatreh, Omar Abed Hadi, Ayed Al-Abdallat, Jamal Abu Elenein, Jamal Yousef Ayad. (1/1/2019). Modeling Producer Responses with Dynamic Programming: A Case for Adaptive Crop Management. Agricultural Economics, 50 (1), pp. 101-111.
Keywords:
bioeconomic
risk
systems analysis
stochastic dynamic programming
crop rotation