Farm Planning

Optimal Farming and optimal farm plan

• Farm planning is a process of working out in advance how many farm resources are going to be
used in which enterprise for the whole farm over a specified period of time. A farm plan is the
result of the farm planning process. It is a statement of the enterprises to be undertaken over
this time period
Optimal farming
(1) The income generated by the optimal farm plan is generally higher than the income from the
observed farm plan
(2) Optimization brings about a change in land use patterns;
(3) Operating capital, labour and irrigated land in the second season are the major limiting
resources to farm income improvement;
(4) Farmers are risk efficient and changes in risk aversion affect the enterprise mix of the optimal
farm plans.
An Optimal-farm plan is an outline or summary of the type and volume of production to be carried
out on the entire farm and the resources needed to do it. When the expected costs and returns for
each part of the plan are organized into a detailed projection, the result's is a whole-farm budget
Aims of Optimal Farm Planning
• Show how Optimal-farm planning differs from the planning of
individual enterprises
• Learn the steps and procedures to follow in developing an Optimal-
farm plan
• Understand the use of an Optimal -farm plan and budget
• Compare the assumptions used for short-run and long-run budgeting
Procedure for Developing a Optimal -
Farm Plan
1. Formulate farm goals
2. Choose enterprises
3. Assess available resources
4. Identify possible enterprises
5. Prepare whole-farm budget
1.Formulate farm goals
• The goals of the farmer will affect the whole-farm
plan if, as is common, maximizing profit is not the sole
goal.
• Other goals might relate to security, status, fulfilling
social and family obligations, spending time in
activities off the farm and so on
2.Inventory of available resources
• This is a necessary first step in assessing the farm potential before
calculating gross margins.
• The inventory should include the amount and quality of land and its
related resources (for example, soils and vegetation), standing crops
(including useful trees), family labour, livestock, machinery, buildings,
off-farm financial investments, cash on hand and in the bank, and
financial liabilities.
3.Identify possible enterprises
• Accurate technical information about how farmers operate
their enterprises is the basis for any form of financial analysis
in farm management.
• The technical and financial information needed to make
commercial farm decisions takes many different forms.
4.Estimate gross margins and choose
enterprises
• 1. Enter as much of this enterprise in the farm plan as resources allow.
For example, presume that Strawberry is the most desirable enterprise
from the farmer’s point of view. However, he might only get an export
contract for 12 tones and is therefore restricted to putting a limit of 1
acre on this enterprise.
• 2. Enterprises would be added to the farm plan until it is not possible to
add any more without reducing the total benefits that the farmer
receives from production.
• 3. Partial budgeting, labour scheduling and cash flow budgeting help the
farmer to change the enterprise mix until maximum benefits are
obtained
5.Prepare the optimal -farm budget
• This information is in two parts.
• The first part is the information on the areas and gross margins per
acre of the enterprises. They are multiplied by each other to obtain
the total gross margin for the farm. This means information on
variable costs is automatically included. Note that the budgets for
crop enterprises are expressed on a per acre basis.
• Budgets for livestock enterprises may be expressed on a per animal
basis
• The second part is the information on fixed costs, which has not been
included in the gross margins.
• Fixed costs are added to obtain total fixed costs. This amount is then
subtracted from the aggregate of the enterprise gross margins to
obtain net farm earnings.
Resources
•  Land: total number of acres, types of land, fertility levels, climate,
potential pests, tenure arrangements and leases, etc.
•  Buildings: number, type, condition
•  Labor: quantity and quality
•  Machinery: number, size, and capacity
•  Capital: short-run and long-run availability
•  Management: age, experience, and past performance
•  Other resources: markets, quotas, specialized inputs
Example of Optimal -Farm Planning
Efficient management of farmers’ fields
through modern techniques
• New information and communication technologies (NICT) make field level crop
management more operational and easier to achieve for farmers. Application
of crop management decisions calls for agricultural equipment that supports
variable-rate technology (VRT), for example varying seed density along with
variable-rate application (VRA) of nitrogen and phytosanitary products.
• Precision agriculture uses technology on agricultural equipment (e.g. tractors,
sprayers, harvestors, etc.):
• Geographic positioning system (e.g. GPS receivers that use satellite signals to
precisely determine a position on the globe);
• Geographic information systems (GIS), i.e., software that makes sense of all
the available data; variable-rate farming equipment (seeder, spreader).
Efficient management of farmers’ fields
through modern techniques.. Contd…
• Geolocation of a field enables the farmer to overlay information
gathered from analysis of soils and residual nitrogen, and information
on previous crops and soil resistivity.
• Geolocation is done in two ways:
• The field is delineated using an in-vehicle GPS receiver as the farmer
drives a tractor around the field. The field is delineated on a base map
derived from aerial or satellite imagery.
• The base images must have the right level of resolution and
geometric quality to ensure that Geolocation is sufficiently accurate.
Characterizing variability
• Intra- and inter-field variability may result from a number of factors. These
include climatic conditions (hail, drought, rain, etc. ), soils (texture, depth,
nitrogen levels), cropping practices (no-till farming), weeds and disease.
• Permanent indicators chiefly soil indicators—provide farmers with
information about the main environmental constants.
• Point indicators allow them to track a crop’s status, i.e., to see whether
diseases are developing, if the crop is suffering from water stress, nitrogen
stress, or lodging, whether it has been damaged by ice and so on. This
information may come from weather stations and other sensors (soil
electrical resistivity, detection with the naked eye, satellite imagery, etc.).
• Soil resistivity measurements combined with soil analysis make it possible
to precisely map agro-pedological conditions
Efficient management of farmers’ fields
through modern Practices
•  1.Integrated Farm Management (IFM)
•  2 .Integrated Pest Management ( IPM)/FFS/GAP
•  3. Integrated Nutrient Management (INM)/ Soil fertility
•  4. Integrated Weed Management (IWM) /Weeds
•  5. Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM)/Drip/Sprinkler
•  6.Integrated Natural Resources Management /INRM
•  7.Agriculture Information Management (AIM)/GIS/GPS/ICT
•  8. Integrated agriculture-aquaculture technology
•  9.Integrated Farm Forestry
•  10.Integrated Sustainable waste management
1.Integrated Farm Management
2. Integrated Pest Management
3.Integrated Nutrient Management
Climate
4. Integrated weed management
5. Integrated water resource management
6.Integrated Natural Resources
Management /INRM
7.Agriculture Information Management
8. Integrated agriculture-aquaculture
technology
• 9. Integrated Farm Forestry
10.Integrated Sustainable waste
management
 Precision agriculture around the world
• The concept of precision agriculture first emerged in the United States in the early
1980s.
• In 1985, researchers at the University of Minnesota varied lime inputs in crop fields. It
was also at this time that the practice of grid sampling appeared (applying a fixed grid
of one sample per hectare).
• Towards the end of the 1980s, this technique was used to derive the first input
recommendation maps for fertilizers and pH corrections.
• The use of yield sensors developed from new technologies, combined with the advent
of GPS receivers, has been gaining ground ever since.
• The development of GPS and variable-rate spreading techniques helped to anchor
precision farming management practices. Uptake of GPS is more widespread.
• But this hasn’t stopped them using precision agriculture services, which supplies
field-level recommendation maps.
Objectives of Precision Agriculture
•  Precision agriculture aims to optimize field-level management with regard to:
•  crop science: by matching farming practices more closely to crop needs (e.g. fertilizer
inputs)
•  environmental protection: by reducing environmental risks and footprint of farming
(e.g. limiting leaching of nitrogen); economics: by boosting competitiveness through
more efficient practices (e.g. improved management of fertilizer usage and other inputs).
•  Precision agriculture also provides farmers with a wealth of information to:
•  build up a record of their farm;
•  improve decision-making;
•  foster greater traceability
•  enhance marketing of farm products
•  improve lease arrangements and relationship with landlords
•  enhance the inherent quality of farm products (e.g. protein level in bread-flour wheat)
Economic and environmental impacts of
precision agriculture
• 1.Reduce the amount of nutrient and other crop inputs used while boosting
yields. Farmers thus obtain a return on their investment by saving on
phytosanitary and fertilizer costs.
• 2.The second, larger-scale benefit of targeting inputs—in spatial, temporal
and quantitative terms Applying the right amount of inputs in the right place
and at the right time benefits crops, soils and groundwater, and thus the
entire crop cycle.
• 3. Consequently, precision agriculture has become a cornerstone of
sustainable agriculture, since it respects crops, soils and farmers.
• 4.Sustainable agriculture seeks to assure a continued supply of food within
the ecological, economic and social limits required to sustain production in
the long term. Precision agriculture therefore seeks to use high-tech systems
in pursuit of this goal.
Suggestion for Optimal Farming and
precision agriculture
•  1. Improve the way of producing an existing output with existing inputs.
Example: Use hedgerows on slopes to conserve land resources.
•  2. Use a new input. Example: Hire and use modern machinery to
replace labour cultivating land.
•  3. Modify an existing input. Example: New tomato seed variety.
•  4. Introduce a new enterprise. Example: novel vegetables .
•  5. Change the mix of existing enterprises. Example: New intercropping,
alley cropping.
•  6. Change the timing of a farming operation. Example: Integrated
managements.
Suggestion for Optimal Farming and
precision agriculture… contd..
•  7. Improve the quality of an existing product. Example: Mango exports to
Europe .
•  8. Use a new marketing opportunity for an existing product. Example:
Export of vegetables and fruit.
•  9. Use a new way of promoting an existing product. Example: Get an
organic product certificate, use HTFA for disease-free exports.
•  10. Use by the farmer of a new processing method before selling an output.
Example: Replace drying of Dates with solar drying.
•  11. Use a new way of extending the shelf life of an output. Example:
Packaging of vegetables.
•  12. Change market relations. Example: contract farming.
Suggestion for Optimal Farming and
precision agriculture.. Contd..
• 13. GIS displays maps that are made from collected data.
• 14 Variable rate technology (VRT) allows site specific application of
fertilizer, chemicals, and planting. By using VRT, environmental impact
is reduced due to soil receiving only what it needs, instead of too
much or little.
• 15. Yield monitors use GPS to record crop yields at a specific location.
These work by measuring the volume, moisture, and weight of a crop
as it passes through the combine. The results are then used to create
a map, allowing a farmer to know where high and low yielding areas
in a field are.
• 16. Sensors and remote sensing are also used. Sensors can be used to
determine weed infestation,