Book excerpt: Cover -- Contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgements -- Part one: Multiple criteria in agricultural decisions -- Chapter 1. Main features of the multiple criteria decision-making paradigm -- Criticism of the traditional paradigm for decision-making -- Economic versus technological decisions -- Multiple objectives and goals in agricultural economics -- Historical origins of the MCDM paradigm -- Plan of the book -- Suggestions for further reading -- Chapter 2. Some basic concepts -- Attributes, objectives and goals -- Distinction between goals and constraints -- Pareto optimality -- Trade-offs between decision-making criteria -- A first approximation of the main MCDM approaches -- Suggestions for further reading -- Part two: Multiple criteria decision-making techniques -- Chapter 3. Goal programming -- Introductory example for handling multiple criteria in a farm planning model -- The role of deviational variables in goal programming -- Lexicographic goal programming -- Sensitivity analysis ...