Economic and ecological decision support for plant production procedures

The ability to ensure sustainable agriculture between economic pressure and ecological demands depends on a solid and sufficient data base for the decision-making and to provide the proof for ecological sound management. Main characteristics of such a data base are detailed economic and detailed ecological information about the conducted production procedures. Therefore a computer-supported programme was developed to calculate the necessary information. The objective of the model is to calculate the economic as well as the environmental impact of plant production procedures. In an interactive process, the user defines the location-specific available plant production procedures. Farm equipment and natural conditions are included. The economics are calculated in the classical way of gross margin analysis and an extended gross margin analysis. Labour demand of the designed plant production procedure is evaluated in total as well as per work procedure. Process chain analyses are included to measure the environmental impact of production procedures. A focus is given to the primary energy demand as well as to emissions being relevant for eutrophication, greenhouse effect and acidification.