Presentation Title 30ptDate, defused light 20ptPresenter’s Full Name, defused light 16ptPosition, defused light 16pt

Daniel L. Sandars Natural Resources Management Centre,

School of Applied Science, Cranfield University

Contribution to:ESI2009 "OR in Agriculture and Forest Management “

25th July- 8th August 2009, Lleida, Spain.

The financially rational provision of over-winter stubbles on UK arable farms to promote farmland birds

RELU: Biodiversity options for English lowland arable farming

Soils and Weather

Workable hours

Profitability (or loss)

Crop and livestock outputs

Environmental Impacts

Possible crops, yields, maturity

dates, sowing dates

Silsoe Whole Farm Model

Linear programme, important features timeliness penalties,

rotational penalties, workability per task,

uncertainty

Machines and

people

Constraints and

penalties

Heavy clay, 800 mm annual rainfall

0

50

100

150

200

250

7 Ja

n

7 Feb

7 M

ar

7 Apr

7 M

ay

7 Ju

n7

Jul

7 Aug

7 Sep

7 Oct

7 Nov

7 Dec

Ho

urs

Sandy loam, 500 mm annual rainfall

-

50

100

150

200

250

7 Ja

n

7 Feb

7 M

ar

7 Apr

7 M

ay

7 Ju

n7

Jul

7 Aug

7 Sep

7 Oct

7 Nov

7 Dec

Ho

urs

Workable hours v. tractor hours

Period, fortnights Period, fortnights

Voluntary conservation behaviour

• How would free conservation education influence farmer behaviour?

• What types of policy intervention do farmers find unacceptable?

Multi-criteria methods

Discrete choice problems Continuous choice problems

Methods Multi-criteria Decision Making, Analytic Hierarchy Process, Outranking methods, etc

Goal programming, Compromise programming, Multiple Objective programming

Features Elicits a rich picture of attributes. Formal problem structuring methods. Interactive with a few motivated decision makers

Simple view of attributes. Few examples of formal problem structuring methods. Examples of non-interactive uses

Role Mostly prescriptive solutions, but have seen AHP claim to predict the outcome of the US presidential election

Most examples prescriptive

Weight distributionattributes (metrics)

0

0.05

0.1

0.15

0.2

0.25

0.3

0 5 10 15 20

Attribute

No

rma

lise

d w

eig

ht

centroidobserved

Overwintered crop residue area, ha/ 250 ha of land in arable farming systems

Arable NUTS4

STUBBLE_AR / none

Not Modelled

0 - 4

4 - 8

8 - 12

12 - 16

16 - 20

20 - 24

24 - 28

28 - 32

32 - 36

Pareto optimal trade-offs between profit and overwintered stubble area showing the effect of location

0

50

100

150

200

250

£0 £10,000 £20,000 £30,000 £40,000 £50,000 £60,000 £70,000 £80,000 £90,000

Net farm profit, £/ 250 ha

Are

a o

f cr

op

res

idu

es s

urv

ivin

g

bey

on

g m

id F

eb.,

ha/

250

ha

Heavy clay, 670 mm annual rainfall Sand, 540 mm annual rainfall

Extra cost, £/ 250 ha to ensureat least 25 ha of overwintered crop residues

Arable NUTS4

EXTRA_COST

-1

0 - 5

6 - 15

16 - 30

31 - 90

Promoting spring crops v. stubbles via selective subsidy

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

0 50 100 150 200 250

Spring crops, ha/ 250 ha farm

Stu

bb

les

ove

rwin

teri

ng

to

mid

Feb

.,

ha

/250

ha

In general greater prosperity leads to increased timeliness and less overwintered stubbles

35

36

37

38

39

40

41

42

43

Prices80%

Prices90%

Prices100%

Prices110%

Prices120%

Prices130%

ha

ove

rwin

tere

d s

tub

ble

/ 250

ha

typ

ical

ara

ble

far

m

£47k

£48k

£48k

£49k

£49k

£50k

£50k

£51k

Stubble area where annualrainfall -700 mm and mediumsoil type -cropping frozen

Annual fixed cost whereannual rainfall -700 mm andmedium soil type -croppingfrozen

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

0 50 100 150 200 250

Spring crop area ha/250 ha

Stu

bb

le a

rea

ha/

250h

a

Heavy clay, 670 mm annual rainfall Sandy clay loam, 595 mm annual rainfallSand, 540 mm annual rainfall

Stubble area given mandatory amounts of spring crops, showing that given enough flexibility overwintered stubbles will be avoided

Acknowledgements

The research was funded as part of the UK Research Councils' Rural Economy and Land Use Programme (RELU) (Project: RES-227-25-0025-A). RELU is collaboration between the Economic and Social Research Council, the Natural Environment Research Council and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, with additional funding from Defra and the Scottish Government.