Optimal farm planning, efficient management of farmers A Lecture By Mr Allah Dad Khan Visiting Professor Agriculture University Peshawar

1. Deforested land in Burkina Faso
1

2. Optimal farm planning, efficient management
of farmers’ fields , precision agriculture
management practices
Dated 16th Oct 2015.

3. Steps in presentation
1. Optimal farm planning
2. Efficient management of farmers’ fields
3. precision agriculture management practices

4. 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 enterprises 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 was higher than the income
from the observed farm plan
(2) Optimization brought about a change in land use patterns;
(3) Operating capital, November labour and irrigated land in the second season
were the major limiting resources to farm income improvement;
(4) Farmers are risk efficient and changes in risk aversion affect the
(5) enterprise mix of the optimal farm plans.
A 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

5. 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 a
Optimal-farm plan
 Understand the uses for a Optimal -farm plan and budget
 Compare the assumptions used for short-run and long-run
budgeting
 Introduce linear programming as a tool for Optimal -farm
planning

6. 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 budg

7. 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

8. 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.

9. 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.

10. 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

11. 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.

12. 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

13. Example of Optimal -Farm Planning

14. Brief Explanation of the Following Slides.
The next few slides looks at one paddock across three
months grazing history.
The Rapid Pasture Sensor was used in the paddock pre
and post grazing.
No other forms of information are currently available
for this particular paddock.
The raster files viewed are created by the FarmWorks
Kriging program.

15. 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).

16. 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.
Efficient management of farmers’ fields through modern
techniques contd

17. 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

18. Efficient management of farmers’ fields through modern Practices
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 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

19. 1.Integrated Farm Management
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20. 2, Integrated Pest Management
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21. 3.Integrated Nutrient Management
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22. 4. Integrated weed management
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23. 5. Integrated water resource management
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24. 6.Integrated Natural Resources Management /INRM
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25. 7.Agriculture Information Management
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26. 8. Integrated agriculture-aquaculture technology
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27. 9. Integrated Farm Forestry
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28. 10.Integrated Sustainable waste management
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29. 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.

30. 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)

31. 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.

32. 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.

33. 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.

34. 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,