Allocation of Agricultural Land To The Major Crops of Saline Track By Linear Programming Approach: A Case Study

Linear programming (LP) technique is relevant in optimization of resource allocation and achieving efficiency in production planning particularly in achieving increased agricultural productivity. In this paper a Linear programming technique is applied to determine the optimum land allocation to 10 major crops of the saline track of rain red zone using agriculture data, with respect to various factors viz. cost of seeds, cost of fertilizers/ pesticides, yield of crops, daily wages of labour and machine charges, selling base price of commodities, for the period 2009-2010. The proposed LP model is solved by standard simplex algorithm and Arsham’s Push and Pull algorithm and the solutions are compared. A case study is carried out in the saline track of rain fed zone of Murtizapur Tahsil of Akola District, Maharashtra; India. It is observed that the proposed LP model is appropriate for finding the optimal land allocation to the major crops of study area.