Decision-Focused Agricultural Research
Agriculture serves a wide range of purposes, and new requirements and objectives continue to be added
Abstract
Agriculture serves a wide range of purposes, and new requirements and objectives continue to be added. Besides food and fiber production, we expect modern agricultural systems to conserve soils and biodiversity, regulate water and carbon cycles, provide fuel, generate employment, and offer many other ecosystem services. Whether agriculture succeeds in delivering all these services depends on a complex array of cultural, technological, educational, political, legal, demographic, sociological, climatic, and economic drivers. The goals and values of people working on farms also influence agricultural outcomes.
Predicting how farms respond to changes—such as new farming practices, price shocks, or climatic events—is very difficult. There is normally no way of knowing with precision how such changes will play out. This dilemma has often left people making decisions on agricultural systems with little certainty that these decisions are right.
This work is part of the Innovative Methods and Metrics for Agriculture and Nutrition Actions (IMMANA) programme, a research initiative funded by the UK Department for International Development
Citation
Eike Luedeling, Keith Shepherd, Decision-Focused Agricultural Research, The Solutions Journal, Volume 7, Issue 5, September 2016, Pages 46-54 (https://www.thesolutionsjournal.com/article/decision-focused-agricultural-research/)