A bilevel programming model for farm planning in nitrates sensitive agricultural areas

Farm planning usually uses linear or nonlinear mathematical programming models, which generally achieve one or more goals of the decision maker. The purpose of this study is to develop a model for farm planning, which involves more than one decision maker and uses several conflicting criteria. To this end, the methodology of Bilevel Linear Programming (BLP) for farm planning was applied in order to achieve the optimal production plan. In order to determine the two different levels of BLP we assume that the first goal is the maximization of gross margin for the farmer ("leader") and the second goal is the minimization of fertilizers use which we assume that is represented by the Greek society ("follower"), through the protection of nitrates sensitive areas scheme of the Greek Rural Development Plan 2007-2013. Finally, the results obtained from BLP are compared with the results of the linear programming model.