Applications of Dynamic Programming to Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries: Review and Prognosis

Farmers are faced with many decision problems in crop and livestock production which are multistage and stochastic. There have been many applications of dynamic programming (DP) to such decision problems, many primarily for illustrative purposes. It is argued that the advent of farmer access to computers will lead to on-farm use of DP. Applications of DP to forestry, fisheries and agricultural policy are also reviewed. The scope and limitations of DP are discussed, and the close relationship between DP and control theory is examined.