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17
Determination of Effective Policies for
Ecological Agriculture Development with
System Dynamics and Agent Based
Models - Case Study in Slovenia
Črtomir Rozman, Andrej Škraba, Karmen Pažek,
Miroljub Kljajić, Martina Bavec and Franci Bavec
Univeristy of Maribor/Faculty of Agriculture and Life Sciences
Univeristy of Maribor/Faculty of Organizational Sciences
Slovenia
1. Introduction
Agricultural activity, beyond its primary function, can also shape the landscape, provide
environmental benefits such as land conservation, sustainable management of renewable
natural resources and preservation of biodiversity, and contribute to the socioeconomic
viability of many rural areas (Majkovič et al., 2005). One way of emulating the prevailing
EU policy reform trends is also to support and encourage organic farming, which is gaining
in importance in Slovene agricultural production. Contemplated as a whole, any sound
agricultural reform would entail not only necessary positive shifts in economic efficiency
levels concerning the production and processing of food, but should specifically address
some key socio-economic issues that are at the core of preserving and maintaining the
ecological balances in the Slovene countryside; with biodiversity becoming an increasingly
important agricultural policy concern (Ivančič et al., 2003). With respect to terms of
multifunctionality, organic agriculture is the highest environmentally valuable agricultural
system (Rozman et al., 2007a, 2007), and has strategic importance at national level that goes
beyond the interests of agricultural sector.
This alternative agricultural paradigm may provide the link between objectives of
sustainable resource use and sustainable regional development. The consequences of
policies are long term and irreversible. In this light the conceptual methodological approach
for evaluation of development policies for organic farming must be developed. Organic
agriculture represents a complex system at national level (Shi and Gill, 2005) and different
modeling approaches have been described in the literature (farm level, regional level and
national level). Also, technologic economic simulation at farm level and multicriteria
decision analysis are often used for decision support at farm level (Rozman et al, 2005;
Pažek et al, 2006). Boorsma (1990) distinguishes three approaches in modelling the
behaviour of the farmer: econometric modelling (based on linear regression equations of a
data set); mathematical programming and modelling decision processes based on decision
rules. At the national and regional level we often encounter econometric models that can
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