System Dynamics Modeling for National Agricultural System With Policy Recommendations: Application to Iran

Abstract

Using system dynamics (SD) approach, this paper develops a simulation model to study the behaviors and relationships within the agricultural system at national level and analysis the future scenarios. The proposed model considers three major sub-systems: demand side (population and income), supply side (land use, water resources, and productivity), and regulatory side (barriers, incentives, and support). Iranian agricultural system is modeled using this approach and the future conditions are simulated under three if-then scenarios up to 2040. The results show that under the policies as current conditions, the demand for the agricultural products will rapidly increase due to the population growth and economic development. However, agricultural land use and domestic supply does not experience much growth because of crucial limitations in the climatic conditions, available water resources, and rather low productivity; therefore, the gap will be compensated through an ever increasing import. The suggested SD model helps policy makers to identify the bottleneck points in the system based on simulation results and then, improvement policies can be made according to these bottlenecks. Some improvement policies for supply side have been proposed and effectiveness of them on increase in production and agricultural land use development has been demonstrated. By improving supply side policies alone, the Iranian government's goal of agricultural self-sufficiency is not likely to be achieved and it is essential to improve the demand side policies in this regard. The suggested model has proven to be useful for Iranian agricultural system, and its methodology could be used as a decision support tool for land use planning, policy making and managements of agricultural sector.

Dynamic performance development of entrepreneurial ecosystem in the agricultural sector

“…Mesgari et al. (2017) modeled the dynamics of the agricultural development system in Iran and presented water and land resources exploitation policies regarding the rise in demand and the economic development in the future.…”

Modeling the spatial distribution of crop cultivated areas at a large regional scale combining system dynamics and a modified Dyna-CLUE: A case from Iran

“…Recently, Mesgari et al (2017) have presented a SD model to predict the total agricultural land use demand at the national scale. In this study, a modified version of that model has been used to estimate the demand, production, trade, and cultivated area of each crop at national scale.…”

“…Structural validation is the process of determining whether the theories and assumptions underlying the conceptual model are correct, reasonable, and sufficient. Behavioral validation is the numerical process of determining whether the model behaviors accurately represent the conceptual framework of the model (Qudrat-Ullah, 2012; Mesgari et al, 2017). Since we developed the SD model based on the expert knowledge and the available literature, structural validation of the model has been approved in several focus groups in academic centers related to agricultural and economic studies.…”

“…Due to these complexities, use of many crop studies is faced with limitations for national policy makers who need to understand the consequences of policies and to rapidly test a wide range of scenarios. Dynamic modeling, especially system dynamics (SD), is an effective approach to characterize the whole system by integrating various processes and reflecting the interactions between structures and behaviors of complex systems (Zhang et al, 2002;Mesgari et al, 2017). SD method, proposed by Professor J.…”

An integrated and dynamic approach to agricultural land‐use change modeling at country‐level to regional scale: Application to Iran

“…In a companion paper, we presented the development of such a dynamic simulation model that can be used to develop scenarios of future agricultural land use demand at the national scale. In this study, a modified version of that model has been proposed which include three subsystems: demand, supply, and regulatory.…”