The application of SIMOPT2: RICE to evaluate profit and yield-risk in upland-rice production

Abstract

The extent to which farmers are willing to adopt high-yielding technologies depends upon the economic environment of the farm and their perception of risk in this environment. The simulation-dualcriteria optimization technique for upland-rice production (SIMOPT2: RICE) is presented as a decision support tool for maximizing profit and minimizing yield risk simultaneously in upland-rice production, subject to the constraints imposed on the three decision variables, namely, sowing date, fertilizer treatment and plant population. SIMOPT2: RICE consists of the CERES (Crop Estimation through Resources and Environmental Synthesis)-Rice (upland) simulation model and a dualcriteria optimization module. The optimization module consists of the Pareto optimization which identifies those technologies that are noninferior in the Pareto optimal sense, and the min-max optimization which identifies the Pareto optimal technology that is the ‘best compromise’ between profit and yield risk, when both objective functions are equally weighted.