Abstract:

In India, attracting youths in agriculture and making it a sustainable and profitable venture is a big challenge. Optimization techniques play an important role in planning and decision making about agricultural activities. A study was undertaken in Bhagwanpur distributary of Vaishali Branch Canal in Gandak Canal Command Area, Bihar to optimally allocate land area under different crops (rice and maize in kharif, wheat, lentil, potato in rabi and green gram in summer) in such a manner that maximizes net return, maximizes crop production and minimizes labour requirement employing simplex linear programming method and Multi-Objective Fuzzy Linear Programming (MOFLP) method. Maximum net return, maximum agricultural production, and minimum labour required under defined constraints (including 10% affinity level of farmers to rice and wheat crops) as obtained employing Simplex method were ` 3.7 × 108, 5.06 × 107 Kg and 66,092 man-days, respectively, whereas Multi-Objective Fuzzy Linear Programming (MOFLP) method yielded compromised solution with the net return, crop production and labour required as ` 2.43 × 108, 3.42 × 107Kg and 1,78,494 man-days, respectively. As the affinity level of farmers to rice and wheat crops increased from 10% to 40%, maximum net return and maximum production as obtained from simplex linear programming method and MOFLP followed a decreasing trend and minimum labour required followed an increasing trend. MOFLP may be considered as one of the best capable methods of providing a compromised solution, which can fulfil all the objectives at a time.

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