In December 1993, ISNAR, in collaboration with International Consortium for Application of Systems Approaches, organized a three-day workshop on systems approaches and -modelling for agricultural development. Sponsored by the Dutch Ministry for Development Cooperation, the workshop was attended by participants from 12 national agricultural research systems (NARS), nine international agricul- tural research centers (IARCs), and five advanced research organizations (AROs). Although application of systems approaches in agricultural research and resource management is a rather new field, there is...

This book addresses methodological issues of production ecology, and contains scientific contributions written by nine specialists. A central issue is the combination of the agricultural model with reliable data in relation to scale. A model is developed with data from a single point, whereas decisions are to be made for areas of land. Such an approach requires the use of a skilful treatment of available data and information. The book is divided into four parts. Advanced information science yields the best possible models in an efficient way. Geographical Information Systems combine various...