DRAGENT

Theoretical foundations and empirical specification of decision rules in agricultural agent-based modelling approaches: Current state and future prospects
 

Publication: DownloadRepresentation of decision-making (PDF, 1.1 MB)vertical_align_bottom
 

Background

Reliable predictive and explanatory agent-based models (ABM) of agricultural systems are crucial for agricultural policy analysis. Scientific developments in this field, however, are often model-specific and scattered across research groups. With the financial support of the SNF, we organize an international exploratory workshop with leading scholars from the fields of agent-based modeling, farmer’s decision making and land-use modeling.

Objective

Our vision is to establish a network engaged in understanding and modelling farmer’s decision-making in ABM approaches in order to support the development and use of hybrid model approaches and to allow the exchange of empirically based farm agent-characteristics in the European agricultural context. The network should increase the theoretical and empirical understanding of ABM approaches to agricultural systems and further develop the use of ABM as tools for decision support.

The goals of our workshop are to

1. Exchange current research efforts in integrating theoretical and empirical decision rules in ABM;

2. Build a framework or map different frameworks that allow to categorize and collect existing research with the purpose to be able to conduct a meta-analysis of existing empirically based studies of farmer’s decision-making;

3. Establish a network of ABM scholars in the agricultural sector that apply decision-making theories, ranging from psychologies to economics, to model farmers behavior in social-ecological systems;

4. Identify research gaps at the interface between theoretical and empirical approaches in ABMs in the agricultural sector and to elaborate new and innovative study designs addressing the challenge of balancing theoretically-solid and empirically-justified decision rules.

The workshop

The workshop is realized in collaboration with the Td-Lab of ETH Zurich, and uses three tools provided by the Network for Transdisciplinary Research (external pageTd-netcall_made).

First, we use the external pageVenn diagram toolcall_made to elicit the main topics of research and their perspective on ABM approaches. The tool provides a structure to clarify each participant’s expertise and research interest in relation to the implementation of farmer’s decision-making in agricultural ABM approaches.

Second, we apply the external pageToolbox Approachcall_made to uncover implicit assumptions and shared understanding of the scientific background of ABM in agriculture. In general, the Toolbox Approach consists of dialogue about a set of questions and statements (i.e., the “Toolbox”) in a workshop format.

Third, we use a external pageGive-and-take matrixcall_made to identify pieces of knowledge or model components that could be shared between different model communities in the agricultural sector.

The combination of the three methods for co-producing knowledge will allow for the building of a framework (or map of frameworks) that enable to categorize and collect existing research and thus build the fundament for a meta-analysis; pave the ground for the exchange of model or data components; and the establishment of an innovative network of ABM scholars in the agricultural sector.

Contact: Robert Huber () & Robert Finger ()

Funding: Swiss National Science Foundation  

Funding Period: 2016-2017