Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
potentially be an important source of information for the assessment. But for larger
areas and systems, it requires a consistent and efficient application of such models
to the great variation in prevailing farm types.
Recently, there has been increasing interest in so-called bio-economic farm
models (Thompson
1982
; Deybe and Flichman
1991
; Wossink et al.
1992
; Janssen
and Van Ittersum
2007)
. These models link formulations describing farmers' resource
management decisions to formulations that describe current and alternative produc-
tion possibilities in terms of required inputs to achieve certain outputs and associated
externalities (Kruseman and Bade
1998
; Janssen and Van Ittersum
2007)
. One of their
applications is to assess farm responses to policies and how these may differ across
various farm types. More precisely for the European Union (EU), such applications
might focus on assessing supply responses of farms across the EU and their effect on
markets, and on more detailed regional assessments of policies in terms of economic,
environmental and landscape issues. For application of a bio-economic farm model
across the European Union, the model must be generic and flexible enough to capture
for instance the range of conditions from North to South in biophysical terms and from
West to East in socio-economic aspects. Application of one consistent bio-economic
farm model to a broad range of farm types differing in size, intensity, specialisation
and land use (Andersen et al.
2007)
in our view requires a modular set-up.
The aim of this chapter is to present a bio-economic farm model, FSSIM (Farm
System Simulator) with a modular set-up, which can be used as a standalone model
and as a model within the framework for integrated assessment, i.e. SEAMLESS-IF
(Van Ittersum et al.
2008)
. This farm model includes a data module for agricultural
management (FSSIM-AM) and a mathematical programming model (FSSIM-MP).
It offers a structure to flexibly apply it to farm types that may differ in: soils and
climate, resource endowments, agricultural activities and their management options
and utility functions, and that may be subject to a broad range of agricultural and
agri-environmental policies (Fig.
5.1
).
The chapter starts with a brief description of the farm typology that is used as a
basis to simulate European farms. We present the mathematical programming part
of FSSIM (FSSIM-MP), in which information on farm activities, resource
constraints, policies and utility function of the farm is integrated. The following
section presents the agricultural management part (FSSIM-AM) and its optional
link to biophysical simulation models. The software implementation of FSSIM is
presented and an application is provided at the end of this chapter.
Farm Typology
Aim of the Farm Typology
Modelling all individual farms within the EU is not feasible because of the large
number of farms, and the existing diversity among different farming systems.
For that reason it was decided to develop a farm typology that captures the heterogeneity
