BETTER MANAGEMENT CAN IMPROVE THE EFFICIENCY OF INDIRECT ENERGY - Economics of Sustainable Energy in Agriculture - page 13

farmers measured in the workshop and the efficiency scores measured with
DEA were analysed with Spearman's rank correlation method.
3.2 Workshop, management indicators and objectives
Data on the elements of the concept of strategic management were
obtained as follows: each farmer's mission was assessed by measuring his
major objectives and his strategies for achieving these objectives. The
farmers were asked to assign in total 7 points to 3 out of 10 goals. They
were allowed to add any major objectives that had not been listed. To
analyse the relationship between the mission and the energy efficiency the
economic character of the mission was assessed by totalling the number of
points attributed to objectives that were purely economic.
For the measurement of the intensity of the external analysis, the
farmers were asked about their knowledge of and attitude to MINAS.
During 2000, all Dutch arable farmers were able to participate in MINAS
pilot projects on a voluntary basis in order to familiarise themselves with
the system. The workshop attendees were asked if they had done so and if
they had attended information meetings. Furthermore they had to answer
questions on the accounting rules used in MINAS: 1) Is the yield level of a
crop relevant? 2) Are the crop species relevant? and 3) Is it relevant to
register possible positive results ( i.e. the amount of nitrogen that could
have been applied additionally without exceeding the norm above which
tax has to be paid) on the nutrient balance sheet? The score for the external
analysis ranged from 0 (no correct answer) to 3 (all answers correct).
The intensity of the internal analysis was measured by asking
farmers to indicate no more than three major weak aspects of their
fertilisation management with regard to MINAS. Whether the mentioned
aspects were indeed major bottlenecks was assessed by expert judgement
of their current fertilisation practices. The score ranged from 0
(inappropriate bottlenecks indicated) to 2 (correct bottlenecks indicated).
A farmer's synthesis of his mission, internal and external analysis
should result in a fertilisation tactic. Therefore, asking the farmers how
they would adapt their fertilisation tactic to MINAS assessed the synthesis.
The quality score ranged from 0 (in the case of opposite trends) to 2 (the
trends indicated agreed with the simulation results).
3.3 Interactive simulation model
In the workshop, the farmers were asked to enter their fertilisation tactic
into an interactive simulation model, so that they could analyse the effects