Determination of Effective Policies for Ecological Agriculture Development with System Dynamics and Agent Based Models – Case Study in Slovenia - Efficient Decision Support Systems: Practice and Challenges from Current to Future - page 360

marketing channels which would support the organic farming. “Support Resources” are
significantly depended on the government “Subsidy”. More there are “Support Resources”
higher the “Organic Farming Goal” is set meaning, that larger number of organic farms
could be supported. If the “Organic Farming Goal” increases, the “Conversion” increases
above the level that would otherwise have been.
Mentioned interconnections marked with D has a characteristic of reinforcing feedback
loop. By proper government policy the growth in the number of “Organic Farms” should be
properly supported in order to promote increase in self organization of e.g. organic food
marketing and promotion.
Therefore the reinforcing feedback loop D should be applied as the growth generator in
the system.
Loop C represent balancing loop. If the number of “Organic Farms” increases, the
“Application of Resources” increases above the level that would otherwise have been.
“Application of Resources” is also dependant on the resources needed per farm i.e.
“Support Demand per Farm”. Higher “Application of Resources” cause the depletion of the
“Support Resources”. “Organic Farming Goal” is dependant on the “Support Demand per
Farm”. If there is more resources needed per farm less organic farms could be supported
therefore lower number of “Conversion” could be expected in such case. In considered real
case, the negative loops A and C are dominant leaving the system in unwanted
equilibrium state. This would mean, that the number of organic farms is constant well below
desired. In order to move the system from the equilibrium one should consider the policies
which would raise the impact of reinforcing feedback loops B and D which should move
the system state i.e. number of “Organic Farms” to the higher equilibrium values. Price,
Desired production and Production efficiency are also important factors that impact the
transition intensity.
Model development
System dynamics model structure is shown in figure 3. Model consists of 29 variables and 51
links.
There are two level elements applied in the upper part of the model. The variable
“conventional_farms” represent the number of conventional farms. By the flow “transition”
the “conventional_farms” become “organic_farms”. This structure is commonly known as
the market absorption model. “conversion” is dependent on the “organic_farming_goal”.
The goal is set by the “support_resources” available modeled as a level element. The
conversion could only be achieved if there is enough “support_resoureces” present in order
to make a “conversion”. The “support_resoures” are not only the financial means. Here the
society support is also considered, for example education should provide positive thinking
when organic farming is considered. In this category the market development as well as the
demand should also be considered. However at present the “support_resources” are mainly
dependent on the subsidies form the government. Important variable
“self_organization_resources” is driven by the impact of the policy and society support
which intensifies with the number of “organic_farms”. This represents the application of
reinforcing feedback loop which should be augmented. “development_limit” represents the
function which consider variable consumption of the resources. If the resources are scarce
the usage is lower than in the case of abundance. Resources are consumed by the