Agricultural Route Efficiencies, based on Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA)

Abstract

Agriculture is one of our most critical industries, since it provides food. The large size of the agricultural land implies that the treatment of the land must be performed efficiently by mechanization - ground, aircraft or drone (agricultural aircraft are used in this research). Land processing should be done in multiple routes to treat all plots due to the limited capacity of the aircraft. One set of routes needed for treatment of all plots on one agricultural land forms one processing plan. Suppose that we have several different processing plans generated intuitively or by using an exact or heuristics algorithm, the research question is which one to choose to efficiently treat the agricultural land divided into plots. We propose application of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) method for selecting efficient processing plans and selecting and scheduling the efficient routes within a plan, to ensure sustainability of the land treated. The first goal of this paper is to select a relatively efficient processing plan (from the predetermined set of plans) using the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) approach and to analyze relatively inefficient ones. The second goal of the application of DEA method is the selection of efficient routes within one efficient processing plan. Input and output variables are selected based on the analyzed problem's specific characteristics and the previously published research. As a result, relatively efficient plans and routes are selected, and relatively inefficient ones are further analyzed to improve their performance by changing the inputs and/or outputs.