2019 World Conference on Natural Resource Modelling
HEC Montréal, Canada, 22 — 24 May 2019
2019 World Conference on Natural Resource Modelling
HEC Montréal, Canada, 22 — 24 May 2019
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Agriculture Economics
May 24, 2019 08:30 AM – 10:30 AM
Location: Marie-Husny
Chaired by Vincent Martinet
4 Presentations
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08:30 AM - 09:00 AM
Bio-economic modelling of competitive biomass crops’ supply in Europe
This study aims at analysing the agricultural, environmental and economic performance of two promising perennial candidates for the development of bio-economy, namely miscanthus and switchgrass. A bio-economic approach is used, based on integrating N yield and emission functions, simulated by an agro-ecosystem model CERES-EGC, into an agricultural supply model, AROPAj. An inter-temporal program is developed to compute the optimal biomass yield and N level that maximise the farmer profitability. Results show that miscanthus and switchgrass compete with each other for natural resources (fertile vs poor soil quality), agricultural land use (cropland vs grassland), and profitability (high vs low establishment costs).
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09:00 AM - 09:30 AM
Using simulation-based optimization to inform water usage policy in agricultural regions
Public policy decisions related to resource management require resolution of competing objectives. The resource management choices are also made without a clear idea of the availability of the resource.
Allocation of water supplies is critically important; overuse combined with severe drought have damaged aquifers. The imbalances in aquifer levels are dire in agricultural regions, as 80% of groundwater withdrawals are used for irrigation.
Our multidisciplinary research team has developed a software environment to aid the evaluation of water conservation and water supplementation strategies. We use simulation-based optimization to analyze a suite of available options and provide analytics on possible solutions. These data can be used to guide decisions with community support. The talk includes information on case studies and our path forward.
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09:30 AM - 10:00 AM
Time evolution of a differentiated oligopoly: the case of sustainable wine
We study the time evolution of a vertically and horizontally differentiated oligopolistic industry, where firms compete in quantity and are divided into groups producing one variety of a substitutable product. We assume that firms can periodically revise their decision about which variety to produce. Our results are applied to the case of the sustainable wine industry. We characterize the industry composition in the steady state as a function of the parameter values.
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10:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Defining, assessing, and measuring biological control: an ecological-economic modeling approach
The paper discusses the definition of the biological control ecosystem service. It compares different measurement metrics, used respectively by ecologists and economists, and relates these metrics to different definitions of the service and assessment methods. An ecological-economic model of agricultural land-use, pest and predators dynamics is developed to generate simulation data, making it possible to explore a large variety of agronomic, ecological and economic contexts, and obtain exact measures of each indicator, to compare their prediction power.