Linear Programming Applied to Cost Minimizing Farm Management Strategies

This paper illustrates use of minimum cost linear programming techniques with reference to a Great Plains wheat farm. It compares the optimum organization of enterprises developed by minimum cost and profit maximizing strategies of management on the same farm and discusses interrelationships between results of these two models. In general, the minimum cost technique may be used to provide the research worker with knowledge of a wider range of possible outcomes than profit maximizing models used alone and hence may be more useful in a predictive sense than profit maximizing techniques. Application of the minimum cost technique to other problems to which it is especially well suited is also discussed.