Determination of Optimal Food Consumption Basket in Rural Regions with Application of Goal Programming Model

Received: 13 February, 2016 Accepted: 5 February, 2017 In food security literature, optimal consumption pattern is defined as a diet which can secure enough amounts of energy, protein, fat, minerals and the rest of micro nutrients. In this study, using rural household's food expenditure data (Statistical Center of Iran), an attempt was made to define an optimal consumption pattern for all expenditure deciles of Iranian rural households with application of mathematical goal programming models. In order to determine optimal consumption pattern and minimal required expenditure, there were used ten groups of food items, ten nutrients and 23 constraints based on the advices of nutritional specialists. The Study results showed that with current expenditure level on food items for six food expenditure deciles, it was not possible to suggest optimal food consumption pattern, and people in these expenditure deciles could not reach to food security condition; in addition, first to fourth expenditure deciles needed to receive support from government in order to reach to food security level, while fifth and sixth deciles with minor economic efforts or optimizing their nonfood expenditure could compensate for their food expenditure.