2.3. Desktop modelling of production and economic impacts of selected strategies
The Integrated Analysis Tool (IAT, McDonald et al., 2004) was used to analyse the resource use, production and financial impacts of strategies 2.2.1–2.1.4 and their sensitivity to village climate, soil, management and farm design variables. The IAT was initially configured to represent current management and performance of a generic, ‘representative’ farm in each village, using data and information from the village benchmarking activity. The model output for this ‘baseline scenario’ was presented to households at the village workshops for validation purposes and, once model performance was satisfactory, the alternative strategies were then analysed via a series of stepwise adjustments to the baseline scenario. Using the model in this way enabled the households to see the potential impacts and tradeoffs of these strategies on forage, crop and cattle production, labour usage and availability, forage supply and finances. This virtual testing of strategies was used to identify a list of viable and feasible best-bet options for subsequent on-farm testing (Section 2.4).