Instances for Sugarcane Harvest Logistics in Louisiana

In summary, there are 11 mills and approximately 475 farms in Louisiana. The National Agricultural Statistics Service (http://quickstats.nass.usda.gov/results/87A51B62-DE8D-322D-8C98-88FEF17FBB6F) provide zip-code level addresses for 456 farms, and The American Sugar League (http://www.amscl.org/factories) provides exact addresses of the 11 mills. We also have the county level data on sizes of the farms that puts them into buckets of various sizes (http://quickstats.nass.usda.gov/results/D413417A-C18E-328A-8F69-D7B4534720C1). First, we calculate the distances between the farms and the mills. Then, we randomly assign the sizes for the individual farms according to the distribution of farm sizes in the respective counties. We then assume that farms that harvest more than 750 acres of cane a year have two combine harvesters and the ones that harvest less than 750 acres have one combine harvester. This harvester distribution is motivated by the fact Salassi and Barker (2008) found the average number of combines to be 1.5. Each combine harvester takes approximately 45 minutes to fill a load. So, the time to harvest a load in the farm with one harvester is 45 minutes plus a small random component (chosen from uniform random between negative 5 and positive 5) and the time to harvest a load in the farm with two harvesters is 22.5 minutes plus a small random component (chosen from uniform random between negative 2.5 and positive 2.5) (Barker 2007, Salassi and Barker 2008).