Agricultural Risk Decision Support System for Resource-Poor Farmers in Burkina Faso, West Africa
Publication: Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management
Volume 135, Issue 5
Abstract
A stochastic mixed integer programming decision support system (DSS) to aid farmers in the Sahel-Sudan region of West Africa is formulated. It provides optimal crop planting practices that minimize the caloric deficit of a household and maximize limited household income given a seasonal probabilistic rainfall forecast and the farmer’s risk level. The recommendations of the DSS are subjected to sensitivity analyses related to labor availability, prices, and risk level. Furthermore, survey data gathered from a case study of Bonam Village are presented for comparison with the output of the DSS. It is found that the DSS captures many of the complexities of agricultural management practices such as the strategy of diversification. An optimization model like this may have future applications in West Africa to improve agricultural decision making and also test hypotheses related to climate forecasts and improvements in household food security.
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Acknowledgments
The writers are thankful for the contributions of Keith Ingram, Christine Jost, Richard Vogel, and others. Research activities in Bonam were facilitated by Plan-Burkina and the Ministry of Agriculture. Institutional support in Burkina Faso was provided by the Direction de la Météorologie and the Institute de l’Environnement et des Recherches Agricoles. The field research was funded by the Office of Global Programs of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as part of the Climate Forecasting and Agricultural Resources (CFAR) project. Partial funding of the first writer was provided by the Tufts University Water: Systems, Science, and Society (WSSS) Research and Graduate Education Program.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management
Volume 135 • Issue 5 • September 2009
Pages: 323 - 333
Copyright
© 2009 ASCE.
History
Received: Nov 3, 2006
Accepted: Nov 5, 2008
Published online: Aug 14, 2009
Published in print: Sep 2009
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