Decision support software for estimating the economic efficiency of grazingland production

Abstract

Decision support software has evolved in a number of disciplines to facilitate efficient allocation of resources. Such tools are especially useful where the response of complex systems to human activity are difficult to predict. Decision support systems empower managers to rapidly analyze the ecological and economic implications of alternative management strategies. The Grazingland Alternative Analysis Tool (GAAT), has been developed to estimate the economic efficiency of a wide range of grazingland production systems. Systems that can be analyzed, either individually or in combination, include livestock, wildlife, leased grazing, grain and forage crops, wood products and other nonforage crops. The planning horizon, discount rate, available forage, consumption by class of animal, herd management practices, product yields, product and input prices, and improvement investments must be specified by the user. The GAAT program calculates the resulting annual forage balance for all enterprises being analyzed and the net present value and internal rate of return for the specified management interventions during the planning period. Two examples are presented to demonstrate the flexibility of GAAT for analyzing the economic efficiency of grazingland production systems. The first example analyzes the use of prescribed burning to control Ashe juniper (Juniper ashei Buckholz) and the second determines the economic effect of changing a dairy from a concentrate-dependent to a grazing-dependent system.