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Local Knowledge, Agents and Models for the adaptation to climatic variability of livestock farmers in Uruguay

Morales H., Bartaburu D., Dieguez F., Bommel P., Tourrand J.F.. 2012. In : IFSA. Producing and reproducing farming systems. New modes of organisation for sustainable food systems of tomorrow : 10th European IFSA Symposium, July 1-4, 2012, Aarhus, Denmark. Vienne : IFSA, 10 p.. European IFSA Symposium. 10, 2012-07-01/2012-07-04, Aarhus (Danemark).

Basaltic soils in Uruguay occupy 3.5 million hectares, 25% of the country, and are mainly exploited by extensive family ranching production systems. These shallow soils have an extremely reduced capacity to accumulate water that make them more sensitive to drought with negative consequences in: forage production, animal production, feeding security, and high consequences on the economy and welfare of livestock farmers and the local communities living conditions, then on the whole beef supply chain and on national exports. Extreme events will be more frequent in the future as a consequence of current climatic changes. It is thus necessary to improve the adaptive capacities of the livestock producers. In order to understand the past effects of droughts, we developed an interactive agent based simulation model and we compared two different farmers' archetypal strategies. The design of the model was conducted in four steps: 1) we simulated the grass growth using a logistic growth equation calibrated with data originated from the MODIS satellite, 2) the natural dynamic life cycle of the cattle was collectively designed, 3) we simulated the interaction between the grass and big grazers, 4) we designed different strategies of farm management, by using the information gathered in 8 workshops with the participation of 156 livestock farmers. Thus, we collectively examined the simulation results with livestock farmers and development actors. Now, we are constructing a "serious game" called "Ganaderos y sequía" that will be accessible in our web page. The purpose is to get a flight simulator like game that will speed farmers' learning and adaptation to droughts.

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