Selecting the optimal economic crop in minority regions with the criteria about soil and water conservation

doi:10.1016/j.agwat.2020.106295

Agricultural Water Management

Volume 241, 1 November 2020, 106295

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agwat.2020.106295 Get rights and content

Highlights

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The selection process for the optimal economic crop in the minority region is explored.
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The methods of its selection process included AHP and Fuzzy TOPSIS.
•
Some selection criteria are the soil and water conservation and food heritage with the chosen economic crop.
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The other criteria are the cultural heritage and value-adding activities with the chosen economic crop.

Abstract

Taiwan intends to select an economic crop to be planted in a minority region to improve the farmers’ income and soil and water conversation. This paper therefore applied a combination of three well-established techniques, including Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Fuzzy TOPSIS (Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to an Ideal Solution), to optimize the selection process of an economic crop. Based on a literature review and in-depth interviews with government officials, farming experts and farmers, several selection criteria are developed, including soil and water conservation, the continuity of food and cultural heritage in minority regions, and the value-adding activities that may increase the household income and the employment in the entire agricultural Produce-to-Sell value chain. As a result, plum, is selected as the optimal candidate by the fuzzy model for the social assistance program of agricultural development. The experts also suggested that government might empower and energize the administrative organization, maintain soil and water conservation on hillsides and consolidate available resources to maximize the effectiveness of assistance. Moreover, the economic value in the plum Produce-to-Sell value chain can be enhanced, through considering culture, brand, distribution channel, and consumer experience.

Introduction

Agriculture is often considered as a primary economic activity and a vital industry in minority regions. As most minority regions are located alongside hills, soil and water conservation becomes an essential consideration for developing agriculture in these areas. There were evidences suggesting that agricultural employment and revenue are important part of the total employment and total household income for farmer families. Therefore, government in Taiwan tends to foster an economic crop with a social assistance program in minority regions to improve the household income and the employment rate there. The minority regions include Renai and Xinyi Township, which are located on Central Mountains Range in Taiwan. In these regions, the main residents are Taiwanese and aborigines, constituting nearly 79.67% and 57.00% of the population. According to the government, for residents in these areas, agriculture is their primary source of income. Increasing agricultural employment and sales would contribute to their total employment and family income significantly. Therefore, an effective program launched by the government would help scaling up the aborigine living in the Renai and Xinyi Township. It would also foster a suitable economic crop, produce the associated products and promote the market with improving industrial integration, the total employment, and household income. The 2014 Census of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) showed that there were 151,942 minority-operated farms (United States Department of Agriculture, 2014). Accordingly, Barrett et al. (2001) found that livelihood-improving strategies in rural Africa should consider the asset, activity, and income diversification.

Empirical studies have emphasized that three critical issues need to be addressed in minority regions: the unstable price of agricultural goods, low household income for farmers, and the contradiction between soil and water conservation and agricultural development (Aizaki, 2015; Mottaleb et al., 2013). This study therefore aims to promote the decision-making process by finding a scientific methodology to translate the selection criteria into a quantitative model, to improve the effectiveness of decision-making and optimize the public resource allocation. The model has been tested by the economic crop selection in a minority region in Taiwan, where the government aims to assist in agricultural development. According to a literature review and interviews with farming experts, the drivers of the unstable price of agricultural goods and low household income for farmers are associated with several trends, such as higher market competition, higher price risk, aging farmers, as well as production imbalances. For example, United States Department of Agriculture, 2014 reported that 130,680 minority-operated farms in the United States still had a profit less than 10,000 U.S. dollars. An increasing number of minority agricultural legal disputes are originated in minority agricultural areas, which overlap with soil and water conservation areas.

To help the government providing social assistance for agricultural development, two issues need to be addressed: the selection of economic crop and an effective promotion plan, including soil and water conservation. United States Department of Agriculture, 2014 found that minority-operated farms grew various kinds of crops, such as oilseed, grains, vegetables and melons, fruits, tree nuts, tobacco, cotton, sugarcane, and hay. Knowler and Bradshaw (2007) concluded that the government’s efforts to promote conservation agriculture should be different from the particular conditions of individual locales.

Due to budget, resource, and environmental constraints, the government needs to select a single economic crop out of various crop candidates. The optimal crop should have been grown by the farms in minority regions, and have a best fit for the inherent characteristics of agriculture. In the next step, the government needs to come up with a promotion plan. A proper selection of economic crop with a good fostered plan is vital to convincing the farmers to grow the selected crop in minority regions. In addition, there were some papers finding that in making crop planting strategies, farmers generally neglected soil and water conservation, so the criteria of soil and water conservation were critical when government designs and implements appropriate policies and programs (Bekele and Drake, 2003). Calatrava et al. (2011) found the effectiveness of agricultural soil conservation would be affected by the policies of land use, rural development and water, and the education levels of farmers. Longworth and Williamson (1993) found that government was encouraged to provide incentives to encourage the adoption of sustainable management practices (e.g., soil and water conservation) among the minority nationality communities in China.

Most studies discussing the economic and management issues of water and soil conservation employed various econometric models to analyze the factors affecting farmers decision in adopting the water and soil conservation strategies. For example, Mathieu et al. (2019) used a probit model to analyze the factors that determine the adoption of water and soil conservation techniques among Bam cotton producers, and the results showed that early warning, group membership, smartphone ownership, and cotton income are decisive factors. However, technical assistance and an access to the pesticide were negative factors. Wang et al. (2019) used a bivariate probit model to identify factors affecting the adoption of the two soil conservation practices, which are diversified crop rotation (DCR) and integrated cropping and livestock system (ICLS). Kpadonou et al. (2017) used both multivariate and ordered probit models to analyze farmers’ adoption-decisions for eleven on-farm water and soil conservation practices in Western African drylands, and the results showed that labor-, knowledge- and capital-intensive farmers were more likely to make adoption-decisions.

The decision-making process to choose the optimal economic crop can be complicated and uncertain. First, the Multiple Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) fuzzy methodology is considered in this study. An increasing number of papers have considered the MCDM fuzzy model as an essential part of decision theory. It refers to a decision-making analysis method that chooses, ranks, and evaluates with multiple criteria, taking into account that uncertainty and fuzziness are ubiquitous in the decision-making process. For example, Wadhwa et al. (2009) set an MCDM fuzzy model of the reverse logistics system. Yang and Hsieh (2009) discussed the selection problem of the Six-Sigma project by the approach of the MCDM fuzzy model. Al-Najjar and Alsyouf (2003) selected the most efficient maintenance approach using an MCDM fuzzy model.

According to a literature review and interviews with farming experts, the relevant selection criteria include how the economic crop was related to the minority culture and heritage, soil and water conservation, and the cost and benefit analysis for the possible Produce-to-Sell option in the crop value chain. Zheng et al. (2012) showed there was a close relationship between the cultural traditions and minority ethnicities in agriculture in Yunnan Province in China. Zilberman et al. (2019) found that the innovation-induced food supply chain design is significant for the value of food. Janssen and Swinnen (2019) discussed the ways how value chains affect technology transfer and adoption in food chains of developing countries.

The multiple criteria mentioned above would potentially increase the risk of a wrong selection. Considering the risk of selecting an incorrect economic crop in minority regions, this study further included the concept of Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) for selecting the optimal economic crop, fuzzy TOPSIS (technique for order preference by similarity to an ideal solution) method for reducing risks, and they are rarely used in previous literature to optimize the selection process. Based on a literature review and interviews with experts, TOPSIS has the advantages of being straightforward, more comprehensible, more computational efficient and had a better performance than the other mathematical models (Zhu et al., 2013; Tsaur, 2011; Shih et al., 2007). Additionally, the market structure of agricultural products tends to be a completely competitive market, and it is more difficult to highlight the characteristics of similar products; as a result, the planting process is easily affected by external factors. Therefore, there is a high degree of uncertainty and ambiguity in the choice of crops to plant. Therefore, combining the method of AHP and fuzzy TOPSIS method in the present study may be beneficial to the selection of agricultural crops. Accordingly, Webber and Labaste (2009) used the Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA) index and Domestic Resource Cost (DRC) coefficient to evaluate value-chain interventions of the crop industry. This approach may provide an alternative to optimize the decision-making process.

Agriculture is usually the main economic activity of minorities. As most minority areas are located alongside hillsides, soil and water conservation is considered as an essential factor that need more attention. The timely intervention of the government to increase the sales of agricultural products may therefore significantly increase the income of these minorities. Thus, this paper extended on a Multiple Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) approach by introducing a fuzzy model to integrate the AHP and fuzzy TOPSIS method to optimize a selection process for the predefined aim. The model employed in Taiwan aims to select an economic crop that would receive public assistance of agricultural development in a minority region. This paper is organized as follows. The aim and background information of this study are introduced in the first section. The proposed method with a literature review is summarized in Section 2. Section 3 elaborates on the MCDM approach, with an application of this approach in the case study about how the fussy model selects the economic crop in combination with AHP and fuzzy TOPSIS. In Section 4, suggestions and practical implications from experts were provided. The conclusion is presented in Section 5.

Section snippets

Literature review and the proposed method

In this paper, a combined approach of AHP and fuzzy TOPSIS methods was applied to solve the MCDM problem in selecting an optimal crop out of a set of economic crop candidates in minority regions. The method and an integrating process flow diagram are shown in Fig. 1. (Qureshi et al., 2017; Chen et al., 2014; Zhang, 2012; Liao and Kao, 2010; Önü and Soner, 2008; Hwang and Yoon, 1981; Zadeh, 1965)

First of all, to build an initial list of economic crops in minority regions, multiple sources with

Case study: fostering economic crops in minority regions

This paper conducted a case study on fostering economic crops in minority regions, the Renai and Xinyi Township of Taiwan. The decision-making group (DMG, five experts) consists of a government officer ( $D_{1}$ ), two farming experts ( $D_{2}$ , $D_{3}$ ), and two farmers ( $D_{4}$ , $D_{5}$ ), who are invited to provide their opinions and feedback. In the decision-making process, the present included only five experts and stakeholders about fostering economic crops in minority regions participating in the group. Inviting

Conclusion

The government in Taiwan plans to grow an economic crop with a social assistance program in minority regions to improve the household income, the employment rate, and water and soil conversation. Therefore, the present study aims to (1) develop an effective selection process to determine the optimal economic crop; (2) explore the water and soil conservation concerns in growing the selected crop; (3) come up with a promotion plan including possible value creation activities in the

Fuzzy TOPSIS-MCGP model

$\begin{array}{l} Min Z = d_{1}^{+} + d_{1}^{-} + d_{2}^{+} + d_{2}^{-} + d_{3}^{+} + d_{3}^{-} + d_{4}^{+} + d_{4}^{-} + d_{5}^{+} + d_{5}^{-} + d_{6}^{+} + d_{6}^{-} \\ e_{1}^{+} + e_{2}^{+} + e_{2}^{-} e_{1}^{-} \end{array}$ s.t. Criteria 1; Criteria 2; Criteria 3; Criteria 4; Criteria 5 $The Constraint for y_{1} (|y_{1} - g_{1, m a x}|)$ $bound of y_{1}$ $The Constraint for y_{2} (|y_{2} - g_{2, m a x}|$ $bound of y_{2}$ $d_{i}^{+}, d_{i}^{-} \geq 0, i = 1... 6, (Deviation from the target)$ $e_{i}^{+}, e_{i}^{-} \geq 0, i = 1, 2, (Deviation from the target)$

Acknowledgement

This work was financially supported by the 2018 project of Cultural Department of Zhejiang Province (zw2018052), The Key Project of National Social Science Fund (16AJL004); MOE Foundation of Humanities and Social Sciences (19YJCGJW011); Wenzhou Basic Scientifific Research Project (R20190023); Key Research Base of Philosophy and Social Sciences in Zhejiang Province (16JDGH002); Soft Science Project of Zhejiang Province (2020C35025), Human Resources and Social Security Scientific Research Project

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Selecting the optimal economic crop in minority regions with the criteria about soil and water conservation

Highlights

Abstract

Introduction

Section snippets

Literature review and the proposed method

Case study: fostering economic crops in minority regions

Conclusion

Fuzzy TOPSIS-MCGP model

Acknowledgement

Int. J. Prod. Econ.

Food Policy

Ecol. Econ.

Tour. Manag.

Food Policy

J. Bus. Res.

Food Policy

Land Use Policy

Comput. Ind. Eng.

Agric. Syst.

Food Policy

For. Ecol. Manage.

J. Environ. Manage.

Math. Comput. Model.

Appl. Math. Comput.

Robot. Comput. Manuf.

Expert Syst. Appl.

Inf. Control.

Tour. Manag.

Phys. Procedia

Knowledge Based Syst.

Examining substitution patterns between domestic and imported agricultural products for broccoli, kiwifruit, rice, and apples in Japan

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