A decision support system for farm regional planning

This paper presents a Decision Support System (DSS) for planning of farm regions in Greece. The DSS is based on the development possibilities of the agricultural sector in relation with the agricultural processing industries of the region and aims at the development of farm regions through a better utilization of available agricultural recourses and agricultural industries. The DSS uses Linear and Goal Programming models and provides for different goals alternative production plans that optimize the use of available recourses. On the other hand, the alternative plans achieve a better utilization of the existent agricultural processing industries or propose their expansion by taking into account the supply and demand of agricultural products in the region. The DSS is computerized and supported by a set of relational data bases. The corresponding software has been developed in Microsoft Windows platform, using Microsoft Visual Basic, Microsoft Access and LINDO. For demonstration reasons, the paper includes an application of the proposed DSS in the region of Servia Kozanis in Northern Greece.