Transportation models for supporting location dependent manure policy

Transportation models (solved with the LP technique) are often used to describe the distribution of manure surpluses problem. Those models are highly simplified, mainly by aggregating production and destination sites, decision units, manure types and quantities. After tackling the problem of aggregation by empirical evaluation, the potential use of the models for supporting location dependent policy is examined. For this purpose, the shadow prices of the model restrictions are proposed as a parameter to indicate the economic importance of the manure surplus problem at a particular site. The method has been worked out for the Flemish Region, but it may easily be transmitted to other regions with concentrated livestock production in unbalance with the environment.