Programming Models of Interregional Efficiency and Land Use in Agriculture

Abstract

Though it has not yet been applied widely for these uses, activity analysis is a promising aid for applications in agricultural policy and developmental planning. Programming models are especially well adapted to agriculture because of its spatial characteristics and its spread over the whole of nations. Also, the differential production and price functions which define comparative advantage of agriculture in various regions distinctly require empirical techniques which allow the consideration of many producing sectors, if attempt is made to define optimal allocations of production among regions, to specify preferred land-use patterns, or to express quantitative aspects of interregional competition. For policy and planning purposes, programming models are favoured because the goal ordinarily is one requiring changes in the regional origin of production and the general interregional mix of commodities produced. Regression and input-output models are hardly satisfactory in these analyses, as they can only suggest production patterns and commodity mixes which are tied closely to the past.