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GAMEDE: A global activity model for evaluating the sustainability of dairy enterprises Part I - Whole-farm dynamic model

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  • Vayssières, Jonathan
  • Guerrin, François
  • Paillat, Jean-Marie
  • Lecomte, Philippe

Abstract

 Crop-livestock farms are complex systems. The interactions operating in such systems involve decisional, biophysical, structural, and environmental factors. Moreover, as farmers face a large range of management options, tools are needed to support their decision-making to enable them to reach production levels meeting their objectives and compatible with their human and physical resources, while controlling their effects on the environment. Gamede, a whole-dairy-farm model, has been developed to explore this complexity and to represent dynamically the effect of management decisions on biomass and nitrogen flows and on numerous sustainability indicators, such as milk and forage crop productivity, labour requirements, nitrogen balance, and nitrogen efficiency. This article describes the integration of six modules accounting for biophysical processes in a dairy farm (forage production; forage conditioning; herd demography; milk, excreta and animal biomass productions; grazing, quality of fertilisers; and nitrogen gaseous emissions) together with a decision system accounting for the farmer's strategy and technical operations. Most of the six biophysical modules incorporate mathematical models from the literature, but the decision system stems from our own original work. Six commercial farms with different structures, agro-climatic conditions and management strategies were used for validation. The model can explain the differences found in their sustainability indicators at the year scale. The intra-year variability of the main biomass stocks and flows is also well explained. This quantitative validation was completed by a qualitative validation from researcher, adviser and farmer points of view, including simulations of prospective scenarios.

Suggested Citation

  • Vayssières, Jonathan & Guerrin, François & Paillat, Jean-Marie & Lecomte, Philippe, 2009. "GAMEDE: A global activity model for evaluating the sustainability of dairy enterprises Part I - Whole-farm dynamic model," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 101(3), pages 128-138, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:agisys:v:101:y:2009:i:3:p:128-138
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    4. Thivierge, Marie-Noëlle & Jégo, Guillaume & Bélanger, Gilles & Chantigny, Martin H. & Rotz, C. Alan & Charbonneau, Édith & Baron, Vern S. & Qian, Budong, 2017. "Projected impact of future climate conditions on the agronomic and environmental performance of Canadian dairy farms," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 241-257.
    5. Vanwindekens, Frédéric M. & Stilmant, Didier & Baret, Philippe V., 2013. "Development of a broadened cognitive mapping approach for analysing systems of practices in social–ecological systems," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 250(C), pages 352-362.
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    7. Le Gal, P.-Y. & Dugué, P. & Faure, G. & Novak, S., 2011. "How does research address the design of innovative agricultural production systems at the farm level? A review," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 104(9), pages 714-728.
    8. David Berre & Jonathan Vayssières & Jean-Philippe Boussemart & Hervé Leleu & Emmanuel Tillard & Philippe Lecomte, 2012. "Combining farm simulation with frontier efficiency analysis," Working Papers 2012-ECO-16, IESEG School of Management.
    9. Nasca, J.A. & Feldkamp, C.R. & Arroquy, J.I. & Colombatto, D., 2015. "Efficiency and stability in subtropical beef cattle grazing systems in the northwest of Argentina," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 85-96.

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