Eastern Virginia grain producers face production and marketing decisions under conditions
of considerable yield and price variability. Traditionally MOTAD and other risk programming
models have relied on the variability of historical returns series as a proxy for the risk an individual
producer experiences. The mean forecast deviation method provides an alternative to the standard
method of calculating deviations for MOT AD models. This method was applied to an eastern
Virginia cash grain farm to provide a farm plan based on expected prices during the first week of
February. The acreages of com, soybeans, and small grains were specified based on soil type,
government program participation, sales at harvest, storage, pre-harvest hedging, and post-harvest
hedging. The expected farm plans for the 1987 crop year resulted in participation in the government
commodity programs at all levels of risk aversion and for each crop and soil type. Elimination of
government commodity programs from the model resulted in two major findings: wheat and barley
doubled cropped with soybeans preformed well on both soil types and at all levels of risk aversion,
and given 1987 expected prices, idling lower quality land was a profitable decision at all levels of
risk aversion.
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