Integrated assessment of novel two-season production systems in Mato Grosso, Brazil

Publication Type

Contribution to conference

Authors

Carauta, M., Libera, A. A. D., Latynskiy, E., Hampf, A., Silveira, J. M. F. J., Berger, T.

Year of publication

2016

Published in

Proceedings of the 8th International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Page (from - to)

430-437

Conference location

Toulouse, France

Conference date

July 10-14, 2016

Keywords

sustainability

One of the most significant advantagesof growingcrops in Mato Grosso (in mid-western Brazil) is that farmers can grow two crops (in some specific cases even three) in the same season. Froman economic point of view,on the one hand, this provides a strong comparative advantage. On the other hand, this increases the number of decision variables that a decision making agent has to takeinto account. The agricultural production planning iscomplex and dynamic and it needs to considercrop rotation/succession in accordance with annual variability of climatic conditions. We developed a region-specific bio-economic micro-simulation model in order to assess the trade-offsbetween soybean, maizeand cotton production in that region. The model explicitly accounts for a combination of several variables, such as crop rotation (against season and year), planting dates, fertilizer amount, crop varieties, soybean maturity groups, climatic conditions, and prices.We implemented our simulation in MPMAS, a multi-agent software package developed for simulating farm-based economic behavior and human-environment interactions in agriculture. The crop yields were simulated with the Model of Nitrogen and Carbon dynamics in Agro-ecosystems(MONICA). The simulation captured the inter-regional differences between farmholdings, which is one of the key factorsin order to assess the land use change between those seasons. The simulation results showthat the introduction of soybeanvarieties of maturity groupVIIimproved farmerflexibility, allowing a greater number of crop rotation possibilities. It exhibitsan interchanging effect onmaize and cotton cultivation, as both crops compete for area during the second season, changing the production system set-upinthat region.