An Economic Analysis of the Impacts of Weather Modification on Crop and Livestock Production in Southeastern South Dakota

The procedure used for the study was the application of linear programming to an aggregate farm. The characteristics of this aggregate farm were determined from data compiled by the South Dakota Crop and Livestock Reporting Service, with assistance from Dr. Wallace Aanderud and Dr. Richard Rudel, both with the Economics Department at South Dakota State University. The method of an aggregate farm approach was used because the desired estimates are of an aggregate nature. The activities were limited to their actual historical limits, in order to obtain results as representative of the actual effects of weather modification as possible. This means that the optimizing allowed was usually restrictive. Linear programming is a method for determining that combination of activities which will optimize a particular objective, e. g. obtain maximum profits within the restrictive framework of certain constraints. The use of the aggregate farm method introduces two implicit assumptions. The first assumption is that each producer has the same technical requirements for each activity, e.g. each farmer in the area uses the same amount of fertilizer per acre of corn. The second assumption states each producer has proportional resource restrictions. Obviously, these assumptions do not mirror reality. Variability does exist between producers, both in budgets and in resource restrictions. The goal is that the budgets and resource restrictions used are representative enough to minimize the effect of these variations, therefore yielding reasonable results