Achieving Optimal Allocation of Resources : An Application of Linear Programming in Agriculture

The scope of the discipline of Operations Research or Mathematical Programming is not limited to only business management sciences; its application has vastly been extended to many other fields including farming. This paper uses one of the techniques of this mathematical management tool – Linear Programming (LP) - to work out the optimal allocation of resources in a sample of 355 growers, located along sides of two canals of Warsak Dam, running into Peshawar district.Results show that the existing cropping pattern is very much sub-optimal according to the LP suggested solution, wherein 10 out of 12 crops need to be reduced to give space to 2 relatively more enumerative cropping enterprises. The LP results further suggest that for sustainable development a gradual adoption of suggested LP solution would better perform compared to a hastily one-time change process