Published in Scientific Papers. Series "Management, Economic Engineering in Agriculture and rural development", Vol. 23 ISSUE 2
Written by Sorin IONITESCU

Agriculture, as the basic branch of the national economy, is placed among the priority areas of the application of informatics. The goal of the agricultural digitalization strategy is to incorporate computer technologies at the workplace of engineers, technicians, economists and farm managers. Emphasis is placed on the development of software products for the design and implementation of high-performance remote data processing systems and database management systems, along with a sustained concern for professional training of users and providing technical assistance to production units. In this context the paper aimed to set up a linear simulation model for optimizing crop structure in order to maximize income in a vegetal farm using linear programming and simplex method. The model included: the 8 unknown variables for the cultivated area with 8 crops: wheat, rye, barley, peas, rape, soybean, maize and sunflower, 14 restrictions regarding Diesel fuel, fertilizers, herbicides, total surface, expenditures, income, and area per each crop, and objective - function f(Max) Income. The data processing for the simulation model was assisted by Solver from MS Excel application. The results offered solutions for the basic primal and dual problems. For a surface of 760 ha entirely cultivated, the optimal area by crop was the following one: 120 ha wheat, 25 ha rye, 120 ha barley, 50 ha peas, 90 ha rape, 125 ha soybean, 170 ha maize, 60 ha sunflower. The maximum income obtained was Lei 2,210,750, while the consumed expenditures accounted for Lei 1,349,150 and profit for Lei 861,600. Average profit rate was Lei 0.64 per 1 Leu spent. The model also assured savings of Diesel and NPK. As a final conclusion, this simulation model proved that farmers have at their disposal an important IT tool which could help them to use linear programming and simplex method to find optimal solutions for their practical technical and economic problems and assure a high efficient agrobusiness.

[Read full article] [Citation]