Optimization Under Uncertainty in Sustainable Agriculture and Agrifood Industry

This book explores optimization under uncertainty and related applications in agriculture, sustainable supply chains and the agrifood industry. Rapid changes in the primary sector are leading to more and more industrialized structures, which require optimization methods in order to cope with today’s challenges. Addressing uncertainty in the agrifood industry may lead to more robust supply chain designs or to diversified risk. Sustainability requires interaction with the environmental or social sciences.

This book bridges the gap between optimization theory, uncertainty, sustainability and primary-sector applications (mainly in the agriculture and food industry, but also fisheries, forestry and natural resources in general). Although it has been a major challenge for the operations research community, this urgently needed interdisciplinary collaboration is not adequately covered in most current curricula in applied mathematics, economics or (agronomic/industrial/forest) engineering. This book highlights research that can help fill this gap.

The individual chapters cover applications of stochastic integer linear programming and multicriteria decision methods in agriculture. The topics addressed include uncertainty in areas such as the sugar cane industry, pig farming, and cold storage for perishable products.

Large-scale sustainable food production is a growing concern; this book offers solutions to help meet global demand in agriculture by using and improving the methods of optimization theory and operations research.