Optimal agricultural land use systems for Northern Pakistan

The study focuses on a mountainous region in northern Pakistan where due to the higher income potential farmers have moved from cereals to horticultural crops. Since the prices of these crops fluctuate, farmers’ income have become more unstable. Also, they depend more on outside markets for their inputs and outputs and have to use more capital and labour. The study investigates how farmers perform in the new situation with respect to resource use and profits obtained. Using quadratic risk programming models the study concludes that, provided some pre-conditions are met, farmers could adopt more risk- and profit-efficient cropping plans. Furthermore, the book provides a compendium of information about the study area.