“…In agriculture, models are extensively used to capture pathways, test hypotheses, and identify high-leverage solutions, circumventing high risk, time constraints, or financial costs ( Sterman, 2000 ; Turner et al, 2016 ; Tedeschi and Fox, 2020 ; Turner, 2020 ). Models have been applied to optimize diet formulation, livestock grazing dynamics, animal and plant performance/production, environmental impacts, and economic outcomes ( Thornley and France, 2007 ; Turner et al, 2013 ; NASEM, 2016 ; Park et al, 2017 ; Tedeschi et al, 2019 ; Tinsley et al, 2019 ; Aderinto et al, 2020 ; Tedeschi and Fox, 2020 ; Taylor et al, 2022 ). Other examples include the Integrated Farm Systems model to conduct a life cycle assessment ( Webb et al, 2020 ), the Ruminant Nutrition System that simulates nutrition and growth dynamics for different ruminant animal classes and production phases (e.g., steer feedlot finishing diet formulation) as well as economic-cost optimization based on feedstuff costs ( Tedeschi and Fox, 2020 ), and the Ruminant Farm Systems whole-farm dairy system model that accounts for animal, manure, soil and crop, feed storage, and dairy environmental impacts (e.g., GHG; Kebreab et al, 2019 ; Hansen et al, 2021 ).…”