Estimation of Optimal Land Use Allocation Among Small Holder (A1) Farmer Households in Zimbabwe. A Case Study of Long Croft Farm, in Mazowe District

Abstract

This study aimed to develop an optimal land use plan for Long Croft farm (LCF) by assessing the available land resources. It evaluates the potential of the land resources for recommending optimum, sustainable and appropriate land utilisation in agriculture development. Possible ways in improving farming systems and more efficient utilization of the scarce available agricultural resources especially arable land were determined. The study used quantitative analytical approach in optimal land use allocation analysis. A total of thirty six structured questionnaires were used to gather data necessary for analysis. Every household at Long Croft farm was taken as a sampling unit and the area consisted of 36 A1 farmer households. The Linear programming model with an objective function that seeks to maximise net farm income subject to land, labour, capital and consumption constraints was run using Microsoft excel premium solver. The results of the study showed that A1 households are insecure with respect to their land holdings; they cannot use their land as collateral security which is affecting farmer access to credit. The households are also much constrained in land, labour, capital and consumption and as such their land allocation has been found to be not optimal. The LP (linear programming) model has depicted maize, soya beans and sugar beans for LCF when they are no factor markets. However introduction of factor markets (land and labour markets) and farmer performance groups depicted production of small grains and maize. The land reform programme promulgated by the government in 2000 should have focused on equitable right of use, optimising sustainable production, protection of natural resources/ environment against degradation and increase the effectiveness of economic growth of rural and urban population. Most of the fast track land reform developmental activities were done without proper resource surveying for optimum and sustainable resource utilization, especially land, hence great competition and losses of good agricultural uses to inefficient agricultural uses. Resource surveying, land evaluation and land use planning should be employed in Zimbabwe's agriculture to boast production.

Potential of mathematical model-based decision making to promote sustainable performance of agriculture in developing countries: A review article

“…Most of the literatures reviewed here are articles that used linear programming decision support systems for crop mix and cropping pattern (65%) while the remaining are articles that employed linear programming to promote the performance of dairy farms, crop-livestock integration, land and water resource use, arable crops and fisheries enterprises, botanical farm, and other forms of land use with the aim of maximizing net income, maximizing gross income, improving food security, and enhancing livelihood performance. Outlined results suggested that using LP as decision making tool in agriculture provides maximum annual return (Sarker et al, 1997;Hassan et al, 2005;Fallah Shamsi, 2010;Mohamad and Said, 2011;Alabdulkader et al, 2012;Felix et al, 2013;Geta et al, 2013;Andreea and Adrian, 2013;Gadge et al, 2014;Mugabe et al, 2014;Buzuzi and Buzuzi, 2018;Muhammed Jaslam et al, 2018).…”

Penentuan Kapasitas Produksi Dengan Metode Simpleks Pada Ukm Di Kota Batam

“…Program linier dapat digunakan untuk memaksimalkan laba berdasarkan pada keterbatasan luas lahan, jam kerja buruh tani, modal dan tingkat konsumsi. Seluruh keterbatasan tersebut merupakan fungsi konstrain (Mugabe et al, 2014).…”

Linear Programming-Based Cropland Allocation to Enhance Performance of Smallholder Crop Production: A Pilot Study in Abaro Kebele, Ethiopia

“…The LP model was estimated for the combined sample subject to the ecological constraint [23,28] that land allocated not exceed the total land suitable for selected crops in the community (estimated from survey data) and with the financial constraint [29][30][31] that total expenditures not exceed the sum of households' total crop budgets (the total sum of money budgeted and paid to cover the cost of production of selected crops by each individual surveyed households, except land rent and wage of family labor in the 2012 July to September cropping season). Finally, we imposed an additional food crop production self-sufficiency constraint for each of the selected crops, reflecting the aggregated minimum food crop production requirement set by each household surveyed.…”