4.3T3 Training Materials: Exercise "Crop Production" (original) (raw)
Exercise: "Crop Production"
One of the major sources of errors and inconsistencies in the FABLE Calculator are the imbalances that exist between expected or targeted demand and production of agricultural products and various restrictions, such as the land available, or the imports. To study these inconsistencies, the table ChkCrops has been created to be able to analyze the entire economic balance of one particular crop, and then guide oneself to possible levers for corrections.
Let us see an example! As you see below, the Open Source FABLE calculator has by default corn values, which could point to a mismatch between calculated harvested area and the historical values for 2000, 2005 and 2010.
The imbalance is significant, where in 2010 the model is calculating 8,792.94 ktons of corn production, compared to 7,298.48 ktons for historical data, for the same year. Assuming the historical data is reliable, what do you think could be changed in the calculator to bring the two numbers closer together?
Some suggestions are:
a) Check for the entire economic balance (imports, production, exports, consumption, feed), found in this table. What else is off balance? Is there a discernible pattern?
b) Trace the formulas for each of the calculated numbers that are off balance. Write them down, understand the formula and the causal link involved, and think possible ways in which this could change.
c) Are there other goods that seem to be imbalanced as well? If so, is there a discernible pattern?