System and method for developing a farm management plan for production agriculture

• US 6,990,459 B2
• Filed: 08/21/2001
• Issued: 01/24/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 08/22/2000
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Deere & Company
• Original Assignee: Deere & Company
• Inventors: Schneider, Gary M.
• Primary Examiner(s): Hafiz, Tariq R.
• Assistant Examiner(s): BOYCE, ANDRE D
• Application Number:
  US09/934,257
• Publication Number:
  US 20020103688A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,617 Days
• Field of Search: 705/8, 705/7, 702/5
• US Class Current: 705/7.28
• CPC Class Codes: A01B 79/00 Methods for working soil
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0635 Risk analysis of enterprise or organisation activities
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0637 Strategic management or analysis, e.g. setting a goal or target of an organisation; Planning actions based on goals; Analysis or evaluation of effectiveness of goals
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06375 Prediction of business process outcome or impact based on a proposed change
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0601 Electronic shopping [e-shopping]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/02 Agriculture; Fishing; Forestry; Mining

Abstract

A system comprised of hardware, software and business processes for developing an optimal custom farm management plan, and in particular, a single year or multi-year crop selection, acreage allocation, and resource management strategies for production agriculture. The method uses mathematical programming and sensitivity analysis to help the user determine optimal allocations of controllable resources such as land, capital, labor, water, machinery, and chemicals in the context of farm management objectives. The system allows the import of data and information relating to the farm and data and information from third party industry professionals and sources, thereby providing for a complete analysis based on these parameters.

Claims

1. A method for developing a custom farm management plan for production agriculture pertaining to a farm, comprising the steps of:

obtaining input information pertaining to a farm from a user via an electronic communications network, the input information defining at least one cropping strategy;

obtaining third-party financial information comprising at least crop production cost data and crop market price data;

analyzing said input information, on a computer, pertaining to said farm and said third-party financial information in accordance with a mathematical model having an objective function for profit maximization bounded by resource constraints consistent with the defined cropping strategy; and

maximizing the objective function to generate a corresponding first custom farm management plan based on said input information and said third-party financial information, the objective function indicative of a corresponding economic performance of the farm for display or provision to said user, wherein the objective function is expressed as the following represontation;

Max Z Σ

c_jy_jx₁−

p_jx₁,

where Max Z represents a maximization function, c_j is the price/yield unit, y_j is the yield/acre for crop identifier j, x_j represent a crop program variable for crop identifier j, and p_j is production costs/acre for crop identifier j.

2. The method according to claim 1 wherein said custom farm management plan for production agriculture comprises at least one of a graphical display and a tabular display of crop selection and allocation of farm resources for seasonal or multi-seasonal cropping strategies.

3. The method according to claim 2 wherein said farm resources comprise one or more of the following:

capital, land, labor, machinery, crop storage, irrigation system capacity, water rights, and nutrient loading.

4. The method according to claim 1 wherein said input information pertaining to said farm is at least one farm management preference selected from the group of agronomic, operational and physical farm information.

5. The method according to claim 1 wherein the third-party financial information is selected from the group of seed prices, fertilizer prices, production contracts, agriculture insurance rates, agriculture marketing information, agriculture consultant'"'"'s information, agriculture accounting information, and lender'"'"'s interest rates.

6. The method according to claim 1 further comprising the step of performing an iterative process to determine at least one additional farm management plan, wherein said iterative process comprises modifying at least one controllable variable associated with the mathematical model, said at least one controllable variable selected from the group of crop programs, crop rotation patterns, different amounts of production contracts, different types of production contracts, and crop insurance.

7. The method according to claim 6 wherein said iterative process comprises modifying at least one uncontrollable variable of said mathematical model, said at least one uncontrollable variable selected from the group of crop prices, yields and production costs.

8. The method according to claim 6 wherein said user selects a desired farm management plan that meets desired goals from the first farm management plan and the at least one additional farm management plan.

9. The method according to claim 8 wherein said user compares between the first farm management plan and the at least one additional farm management plan based on gross income, downside risk, opportunity cost risk and resource use.

10. The method according to claim 8 wherein said desired farm management plan is determined from profit maximization, risk minimization, resource minimization, and environmental stewardship.

11. The method according to claim 1 wherein resource constraints are expressed as the following equation:

Σ

a_ijx_j+a_ijx_j+ . . . a_ijx_n<

=b_i for each i

where a_ij is a constraint coefficient that represents a measure of resource consumption of resource i, for crop identifier j, where x_j represent crop program variable, where b_i represent a maximum farm resource limitation for resource i, where j ranges from 1 to n.

12. The method according to claim 1 wherein the resource constraints are expressed as the following represontation of a land constraint:

Σ

x₁*z_1n+x₂*z_2n +. . . x_n*z_jn<

=b_land,

wherein x₁ represents total acres of crop 1, x₂ represents total acres of crop 2 up to x_n representing total acres of crop n, where z_in is a binary variable with a value of 0 or 1, representing the presence or absence of a planted crop i in field n, where b_land represents available acres.

13. The method according to claim 1 wherein the resource constraints are expressed as the following represontation of a land constraint:

Σ

x₁+x₂+. . . x_n<

=b_1and

wherein x₁ represents total acres of crop 1, x₂ represents total acres of crop 2 up to x_n representing total acres of crop n, where b_land represents available acres.

14. The method according to claim 1 wherein the resource constraints are expressed as the following represontation of a land constraint:

Σ

p₁x₁*z_1n+p₂x₂*z_2n+ . . . p_nx_n*z_nn<

=b_capital,

wherein x₁ represents total acres of crop 1, x₂ represents total acres of crop 2 up to x_n representing total acres of crop n, wherein p₁ represents total production cost of crop 1, p₂ represents total production cost of crop 2 up to x_n representing total production cost of crop n, where z_in is a binary variable with a value of 0 or 1, representing the presence or absence of a planted crop i in field n, where b_capital represents available capital and z_nn is the value of z_in for field n.

15. A method for developing a custom farm management plan for production agriculture pertaining to a farm, comprising the steps of:

obtaining input information pertaining to a farm from a user via an electronic communications network, the input information defining at least one cropping strategy;

obtaining third-party financial information comprising at least crop production cost data and crop market price data;

analyzing said input information, on a computer, pertaining to said farm and said third-party financial information in accordance with a mathematical model having an objective function for profit maximization bounded by resource constraints consistent with the defined cropping strategy; and

maximizing the objective function to generate a corresponding first custom farm management plan based on said input information and said third-party financial information, the objective function indicative of a corresponding economic performance of the farm for display or provision to said user, wherein the objective function expressed as the following represontation;

Max ZΣ

[c_jy_jx_j−

p _jx_j]*z_in,

where Max Z represents a maximization function, c_j is the price/yield unit, y_i, is the yield/acre for crop identifier j, x_j represent a crop program variable for crop identifier j, and p_j is production costs/acre for crop identifier j, and where z_in is a binary variable with a value of 0 or 1, representing the presence or absence of a planted crop i in field n.

16. A system for developing a custom farm management plan for production agriculture pertaining to a farm, comprising the steps of:

a first module for obtaining input information pertaining to a farm from a user via an electronic communications network, the input information defining at least one cropping strategy;

a second module for obtaining third-party financial information comprising at least crop production cost data and crop market price data;

a third module for analyzing said input information pertaining to said farm and said financial information in accordance with a mathematical model having an objective function for profit maximization bounded by resource constraints consistent with the defined cropping strategy; and

a fourth module for maximizing the objective function to generate a corresponding first custom farm management plan based on said input information and said third-party financial information, the objective function indicative of a corresponding economic performance of said farm for display or provision to said user, wherein the objective function is expressed as the following represontation;

Max Z Σ

c_jy_jx_j−

p_jx_j,

where Max Z represents a maximization function, c_j is the price/yield unit, y_j is the yield/acre for crop identifier j, x_j represent a crop program variable for crop identifier j, and p_j is production costs/acre for crop identifier j.

17. The system according to claim 16 wherein the resource constraints are expressed as the following equation:

Σ

a_ijx_j+a_ijx_j+ . . . a_ijx_n<

=b_i for each i

where a_ij is a constraint coefficient that represents a measure of resource consumption of resource i, for crop identifier j, where x_j represent crop program variable, where b_i represent a maximum farm resource limitation for resource i, where j ranges from 1 to n.

18. The system according to claim 16 wherein the resource constraints are expressed as the following represontation of a land constraint:

Σ

x₁*z_1n+x₂*z_2n+ . . . x_n*z_jn<

=b_land,

wherein x₁ represents total acres of crop 1, x_n represents total acres of crop 2 up to x_n representing total acres of crop n, where z_in is a binary variable with a value of 0 or 1, representing the presence or absence of a planted crop i in field n, and where b_land represents available acres.

19. The system according to claim 16 wherein the resource constraints are expressed as the following represontation of a land constraint:

Σ

x₁+x₂+ . . . x_n<

=b_land,

wherein x₁ represents total acres of crop 1, x₂ represents total acres of crop 2 up to x_n representing total acres of crop n, where b_land represents available acres.

20. A system for developing a custom farm management plan for production agriculture pertaining to a farm, comprising the steps of:

a first module for obtaining input information pertaining to a farm from a user via an electronic communications network, the input information defining at least one cropping strategy;

a second module for obtaining third-party financial information comprising at least crop production cost data and crop market price data;

a third module for analyzing said input information pertaining to said farm and said financial information in accordance with a mathematical model having an objective function for profit maximization bounded by resource constraints consistent with the defined cropping strategy; and

a fourth module for maximizing the objective function to generate a corresponding first custom farm management plan based on said input information and said third-party financial information, the objective function indicative of a corresponding economic performance of said farm for display or provision to said user, wherein the objective function is expressed as the following represontation;

Max Z Σ

[c_jy_jx_j−

p_jx_j]*z_in

where Max Z represents a maximization function, c_j is the price/yield unit, y_j is the yield/acre for crop identifier j, x_j represent a crop program variable for crop identifier j, and p_j is production costs/acre for crop identifier j, and where z_in is a binary variable with a value of 0 or 1, representing the presence or absence of a planted crop i in field n.