SOUTHERN JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS DECEMBER, 1985 A STOCHASTIC PROGRAMMING ANALYSIS OF THE FARM LEVEL IMPLICATIONS OF SOIL EROSION CONTROL

Abstract probability of meeting conservation goals in the short run, rather than rely on long-runThis paper analyzes the effects of uncertain. r t r o averages implied by the USLE mean values.soil loss in farm planning models. A disag- averages implied by the USLE mean values gregated approach was ued because of an A stochastic, farm level programming modelgregated approach was used because of an interest in examining the impact of proba- was used to analyze the impacts of proba-bilistic soil loss constraints on farm level bilistic soil loss constraints. The objective of decisionmaking. A stochastic programming this paper is to determine how net returns model was used to consider different levels and the combinations of production activities of probability of soil loss. Traditional meth- are affected when levels of probability of soil ods of analysis are shown to consistently ov- loss are varied for a representative farm in erestimate net returns. South-Central Virginia. Key words: soil conservation, stochastic pro-gramming, uncertainty. STOCHASTIC PROGRAMMING MODEL Corresponding to the growing national OF SOIL CONSERVATION interest in reducing soil erosion and main- DECISIONMAKIN