Thesis (M.Eng.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 1989

An economic study of the Asian Institute of Technology teaching farm for integrated farming system was carried out. The objective was to assess the existing farming system to find out whether a hypothetic al farm family could make a living consistent with the contemporary standard of life. The study first concentrated on assessing the past performance of the farm by using income and cash flow measures, then linear programming as a tool to search for an optimal plan subject to satisfy the farmer's objectives. Three models have been designed in order to evaluate the present farm organization and to derive recommendations for a more efficient use of resources. Model 1 searched for the performance of the present farm organization. Model 2 suggested a solution without the subjective restrictions of the farmer in terms of enterprises to be implemented and selected the optimal combination of available enterprises together with their optimal level . Possible new technologies were considered in the model 3. The results of the study suggested that livestock and fish enterprises are not economical. increase in income can be realized by changing extent and combination of enterprises. the present A substantial the present The essence of the study is that it provides a readily accessible insight into main interactions of a small scale integrated crop/livestock/fish farming system.