Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 10
The Objectives and Priorities for the Azorean
Dairy Farmers' Decisions
Emiliana Silva, Ana Alexandra Marta-Costa, and Julio Berbel
1
Introduction
The single objective of profit maximization has been the classical and neoclassic
model for firms' decision making. Nowadays, it is accepted that several and
different objectives are most common where the decision is taken at the farm or
regional level. That means that profit maximization is a part of the decision models
and other objectives must be taken into account in order to be closer to reality. Also,
in some cases, firms do not maximize the objectives but rather want to achieve some
previously fixed goals (Romero and Rehman
1989
). For instance, it is known that
familiar farmers must be interested in profit optimization, but also leisure and the
farms sustainability have importance (Silva and Berbel
2004
).
The recognition of the existence of multiple and sometimes conflictive objec-
tives, since the satisfaction of one implies the underperformance of the other (and
vice versa), imposes the multi-criteria methodologies as more suitable to the
agricultural reality. Its main objectives are the models development to provide
optimal decisions and present the best solutions, reflecting greater adherence to
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