I have a problem with the definition of the smallholder model.
Many variations with the resources and the risk (climatology and prices) and the consumption of part of the production.
I found an article but many others researchers work with traditional farm models.
Basically I present:
Profit=(Farm incomes*variation prices+Non-farm incomes)- (production cost+labor+water pricing-irrigation+consumption*variation of numbers of consumption)*exp(water pricing policy-parameter)
Do you know something about it?
Christian, in Africa, a small holder farmer is one with or less than 5 acres of land. thus the profit will be dependent on the farm size and output per acre. thus you have to re-formulate your formula above to include the farm size which is the main factor of production then you can deduce the income and expenditures per acre
A smallholder model in mathematical programming is usually a deterministic LP model with the models’ parameters fixed for the duration of the planning horizon, which is a single year.
It is commonly assumed that two objectives guide smallholders’ decision-making: food production and net income. These two objectives are included in the LP model in various ways and given different weight. This depend on the main research question of the specific study.
For example: The food-security objective can be modeled as a constraint. Household behaviour is then governed by a safety-first rule that compels households to produce a minimum amount of staple foods. It is assumed that, having met the first objective, the household maximizes net income from crop production activities. Thus a constraint is used to “force” the household to produce enough staple food to feed itself before other crop activities can be selected to maximize the net value of production.
Crop activities are divided into monthly periods to reflect the seasonality of crop production and labor requirements.
In addition, resource allocation decisions are subject to seasonal labor constraints and household decisions depend on the level of available technology, the amount of available cash and land, and the availability of input and output markets (i.e., timeliness of delivery).
For a literature overview of modelling approaches see: http://r4d.dfid.gov.uk/PDF/Outputs/CCAFS/ilri_household_modeling_review_final.pdf
Dear Christian,
Your objective fonction is to maximise the farmer profit under some constraints (water, labor...). I think it's simple to catch prcies volatility and in this case your model is a static model. but when you talk about climate variation your model should be a dynamic one. Please see 'Hazel and northon' they have dicussed farm models in there paper
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