Handbook of Operations Research in Agriculture and the Agri-Food Industry

The scope of this book is Operations Research methods in Agriculture and a thorough discussion of derived applications in the Agri-food industry. The book summarizes current research and practice in this area and illustrates the development of useful approaches to deal with actual problems arising in the agriculture sector and the agri-food industry.

This book is intended to collect in one volume high quality chapters on Methods and Applications in Agriculture and Agri-food industry considering both theoretical issues and application results. Methods applied to problems in agriculture and the agri-food industry include, but are not restricted to, the following themes:

Dynamic programming
Multi-criteria decision methods
Markov decision processes
Linear programming
Stochastic programming
Parameter estimation and knowledge acquisition
Learning from data
Simulation
Descriptive and normative decision tree techniques, including: agent modelling and simulation, and state of the art surveys


Each chapter includes some standard and traditional methodology but also some recent research advances. All the applications presented in the chapters have been inspired and motivated by the demands from the agriculture and food production areas.

Lluís M. Plà-Aragonès is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mathematics at the University of Lleida (UdL) and a Senior Researcher in the Animal Production Area at the UdL-IRTA Center. His research interests include operational research methods applied in agriculture and forest management, with special reference to simulation, dynamic programming, Markov decision processes and production planning. He coordinates the EURO working group called Operational Research in Agriculture and Forest management. He is also a member of INFORMS and EURO.

Optimal Planning of Pig Transfers Along a Pig Supply Chain.- Planning the Planting, Harvest and Distribution of Fresh Horticultural Products.- Production and Logistics Planning in Seed Corn.- Harvest Planning in Apple Orchards Using an Optimization Model.- Optimisation of the Supply Chain Management of Sugar Cane in Cuba.- A Hierarchical Planning Scheme Based on Precision Agriculture.- Optimal Transport Planning for the Supply to a Fruit Logistic Center.- Simulating Vulnerability in Victoria's Fruit and Vegetable Supply Chain.- Simulation Optimization: Applications in Fish Farming - Theory vs. Practices.- Swarm Intelligence in Optimal Management of Aquaculture Farms.- Multi-objective Optimisation for Improved Agricultural Water and Nitrogen Management in Selected Regions of Africa.- Modelling of Catastrophic Farm Risks Using Sparse Data.- Forecasting Grape Maturation Under Head Stress Using MatPred.- Technical Efficiency of Sow Farms: A Parametric and Non-parametric Approach.- Multicriteria Analysis of Olive Farms Sustainability.- On the Feasibility of Establishing a Northern-Western Australian Beef Abattoir as a Facility Location Problem.- Optimal Delivery of Pigs to the Abattoir.- Diet Problem.- Markov Decision Processes to Model Livestock Systems.