Affiliation:
1. Pontificia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Abstract
The planning of agricultural cultivation and harvesting is a complex task. However, this area of study is still relatively young. This chapter focuses on the tactical and operational planning for sugar cane cultivation and harvesting which determines the best moment to harvest the fields, maximizing the total profit given by the sugar content within the cane. It considers resources such as cutting and transport crews, processing capacities in sugar cane mills, the use of maturation products and the application of vinasse on harvested fields. The mixed integer programming model extends the classical Packing formulation, adding a network flow structure to represent the harvest scheduling. All experiments were performed with real-world instances provided by a Brazilian sugar cane producer. The suggested solutions are discussed in terms of quality and use in practice.