IFs Agriculture Model Documentation

Dale S. Rothman, Barry B. Hughes, and Kanishka Narayan

The IFs agricultural model tracks the supply and demand, including imports, exports, and prices, of three agricultural commodities: crops, meat, and fish. Crops, meat and fish have direct food, animal feed, industrial and food manufacturing uses. The agricultural model is also where land use dynamics and water use are tracked in IFs, as these are key resources for the agricultural sector.

The structure of the agriculture model is very much like that of the economic model. It combines a growth process with a partial economic equilibrium process using stocks and prices to seek a balance between the demand and supply sides. As in the economic model, no effort is made in the standard adjustment mechanism to obtain a precise equilibrium in any time step. Instead stocks serve as a temporary buffer and the model chases equilibrium over time.

The most important linkages between the agriculture model and other models within IFs are with the economic model. The economic model provides forecasts of average income levels, labor supply, total consumer spending, and agricultural investment, all of which are used in the agriculture model. In turn, the agriculture model provides forecasts on agricultural production, imports, exports, and demand for investment, which override the sectoral computations in the economic model. The agricultural model also has important links to the population and health models, using population forecasts and providing forecasts of calorie availability.