Validating a whole farm modelling with stakeholders: evidence from a west african case

• Published in: The Journal of agricultural science 2012-08, Vol.4 (9), p.159-173
• Main Authors: Andrieu, Nadine N., Dugué, Patrick P., Le Gal, Pierre-Yves P.-Y., Rueff, Marine M., Schaller, Noémie N., Sempore, Aristide A.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Agricultural sciences; Life Sciences
• ISSN: 0021-8596; 1469-5146
• DOI: 10.5539/jas.v4n9p159

Strategic and tactical decision support tools can assist farmers to make farm management decisions. The challengefacing researchers is to construct decision support tools that lead to the successful adoption of the strategiesselected. This article describes and assesses the use of a whole-farm model in West African savannah regions.Farmers and advisors were involved in the choice and design of models, the definition and analysis of scenarios,the design of alternative strategies, and the validation of models. The validation process included a short andmid-term analysis of the use and usefulness of the model for farmers. During the validation process, farmersdemonstrated that they were able to define and characterize iterative scenarios permitting the performance of theirfarm to be improved. They also had a good understanding of the outputs of the model, even several months afterthey had used the model. They declared having changed some technical or management practices and havingacquiried calculation and management skills. This type of process offers an alternative to conventional advisorymethods based on advisor expertise.