Optimal Location of Postharvest Broccoli Facilities in Western New York

The goal of this paper is to identify cost-minimizing locations of postharvest facilities for current and potential broccoli growers in Western New York.  Clusters of farmers are defined based on the location of about 400 vegetable growers registered at the Cooperative Extension Vegetable Program. A geo-referenced transformation of this database (to latitude and longitude) is employed calculate distances between farms with the Harvesine formula. The working hypothesis is that growers uniformly allocated to clusters could share postharvest facilities to minimize costs. Allocation of farms in a cluster is restricted by an exogenous radius given by the maximum distance between a farm and the postharvest facility. The model identifies the cost-minimizing size of the postharvest facility and its location at the interior of each cluster. The algorithm is based on the number of farms per cluster and a general transshipment model that incorporates transportation costs from farm to cooling facilities. In addition, the model includes possible broccoli shipments between clusters. Cost production functions and their parameters are conditioned to alternative postharvest technologies.