WRRCTMR No.50 Optimal Use of Water and Related Resources for Diversified Agriculture on Oahu, Hawaii: A Hypothetical Study

Abstract

The study problem of diversified farming presented in this report represents one of the many hypothetical alternatives in anticipation of the possible future changes in agriculture patterns and land use on Oahu. Urbanization problems involved in the land use changes from agriculture into urban were not a part of the scope of this study. The two major objectives of this study were: (1) to formulate an objective function and its constraints for the variables involved in diversified farming in the southwest region of Oahu, and (2) to show that the objective function and its constraints can be solved by the technique of linear programming. Using the population projection for Oahu, 197O-2020, made by the Board of Water Supply, City and County of Honolulu, projections on available farm land, water, labor, and crops were made and benefit-cost analyses for diversified crops were performed for the study area. Once the coefficients and the limitations of the objective and the constraint functions were determined, the study problem was solved by the linear programming method. The computer program for the linear programming solutions was written in detail in Fortran IV language. Results of this study indicated that (1) diversified farming in the study area should generate profits from selected vegetable crops for which local demand exists, and (2) the linear programming technique can be applied to obtain optimal solutions for problems involved in diversified farming.