AN ORGANIC AGRICULTURE MODEL FOR TURKEY

Organic farming presents a solution to socio-economic, environmental and health problems caused by conventional food production methods. In this paper, we propose a linear programming model to plan Turkey’s organic food production. Specifically, we want to find how many hectares of each food type should be planted in each municipality of Turkey so that the whole population consumes organic foods only. The model incorporates transportation between regions while identifying any missing or excess foods. We also describe the data requirements of the model and discuss data availability. Results on an aggregate (small) model are promising

The role of a civil society organization in the development of the domestic organic market in Turkey

In this paper, we report of a case from Turkey where a civil society organization took an active role in influencing laws, regulations and their implementations regarding organic agriculture and the marketing of organic products. Although the country’s climate and biodiversity is suitable for organic agriculture, the domestic market remained underdeveloped; the organic sector was directed mainly towards exports. By establishing the first marketplace solely for certified organic products in 2006, a non-governmental organization became the locomotive of the domestic sector. The process that leads to the 100% organic bazaar exhibits a contingent characteristic where particularly social and symbolic capital were mobilized by the NGO together with a framing of positive ‘ecological living’ discourse and therefore contributing to the 'organic' movement

Organic Farming Suffices to Feed a Country: a Large-Scale Linear Programming Model to Develop an Organic Agriculture Plan for Turkey

A frequently voiced critique is that due to lower yields on organically managed farmlands, one cannot feed a country using organic agriculture. In this paper, we aim to mathematically disprove this claim by developing a linear programming model and produce a detailed agriculture plan for Turkey sufficient to feed her population with a 2400 kcal daily menu on average, solely comprising of organic foods. The model uses information about population sizes and food needs of 81 cities in Turkey, and yields of 120 food, feed, forage crops, and four animal products. Intensive and extensive livestock production methods as well as food transportation between cities has been incorporated into the model. The resulting problem with 950 thousand variables and 40 thousand constraints can be solved with an optimization package in under a minute. Results, prescribing how many acres of each crop should be grown in each city, indicate that to feed the country fully on organic produce, 63% of the arable land suffices, yielding 8.9 million hectares of unused land where further organic foods could be grown for export or aid. We also run the model under different scenarios: fully vegetarian diet, omnivore model, different transportation structures, drought conditions and a limit on fruit trees. With this work, we have shown that it is possible to feed the whole population of Turkey with an agricultural practice that is not harmful to human health, soil, water and air; respects biological cycles and reduces food miles and fossil fuel consumption, thus contributing to sustainability and fighting climate change. We tested preliminary scenarios to understand the robustness of organic agriculture in the face of extreme weather events. The proposed model can also be applied to other countries when appropriate data are used

A note on perturbation analysis estimators for American-style options

In this note, we correct an error in the paper by Fu and Hu (1995) for the perturbation analysis estimator given for the gradient of an American call option payoff on an underlying asset paying multiple dividends. We then introduce a different asset price model that is more straightforward than the previous model, and derive the corresponding gradient estimators. We conclude with a brief discussion of extensions of the estimator to other American-style options