Applying Optimization and the Analytic Hierarchy Process to Enhance Agricultural Preservation Strategies in the State of Delaware

Kent Messer () and William Allen
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Kent Messer: Department of Economics and Department of Food and Resource Economcis,University of Delaware
William Allen: The Conservation Fund

No 08-18, Working Papers from University of Delaware, Department of Economics

Abstract: Using agricultural preservation priorities derived from an analytical hierarchy process by 23 experts from 18 agencies in the State of Delaware, this research uses weighted suitability attributes to evaluate the historical success of the State of Delaware’s agricultural protection fund, which spent nearly $100 million in its first decade. This research demonstrates how these operation research techniques can be used on concert to address relevant conservation questions. Results suggest that the state’s sealed-bid-offer auction, which determines the yearly conservation selections, is superior to benefit targeting approaches frequently employed by conservation organizations but is inferior to the optimization technique of binary linear programming that could have provided additional benefits to the state, such as 12,000 additional acres worth an estimated $25 million.

Keywords: Conservation Optimization; Farmland Protection; Analytic Hierarchy Process (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C6 Q2 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008
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Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:dlw:wpaper:08-18.

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