Development of a decision support system for assessing alternative agriculture land uses: A case study of the Stellenbosch wine region

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The South African wine industry is one of the oldest wine industries in the world apart from Europe and the Mediterranean. The wine industry, according to SAWIS (2015), is one of the biggest agriculture exporters and was responsible for 1.2% of the national GDP in 2013. Of the total contribution of R36.1 billion to the GDP, almost R20 billion (53%) was created in the Western Cape. By volume, South Africa is the eighth-largest national wine producer in the world (SAWIS, 2015a).According to SAWIS (2015) increased production costs and an increased number of competitors have placed mounting pressure on the profitability margins of the South African wine industry. The current drought coupled with the increasing pressure on profitability margins, requires wine estates to re-evaluate their business strategies to ensure economic sustainability. Therefore, many wine estates are investigating diversification opportunities. It is however a complex task to undertake and many wine farmers do not have the adequate experience outside of the wine industry. Thus, there exists an opportunity to develop a decision support system (DSS) that will aid farmers with the decision-making process regarding alternative selection.This study focussed on providing agricultural decision-makers, who are considering to adopt an agricultural diversification strategy, with a set of considerations to evaluate land use alternatives in a particular area by making use of a decision support system (DSS). Agriculture diversification refers to farms that are participating in diversification of agricultural activities where income is generated from more than one agricultural enterprise. This study specifically focussed on crop alternatives (thus excluding other opportunities such as livestock).A set of considerations that agricultural decision makers can use to guide them during the decision-making process had to be identified. It was crucial that it should be a holistic set that includes aspects regarding the whole farming operation and not just one aspect such as climate when evaluating the suitability of crops for a specific region. The identified considerations are not bound to a specific area and are therefore applicable to all regions. The identified considerations together with design requirements that had to be developed were incorporated into the design of the DSS model. Both the set of identified considerations and the design requirements had to be in accordance with literature and inputs from experts to ensure that the best possible DSS could be designed.The developed DSS uses user inputs to compare different land use alternative types with one another per consideration. The Stellenbosch area was used as a case study scenario for the application of the developed DSS.An internal validation was performed by creating different scenarios to test the logical workings and coding of the developed DSS. Subject matter experts were consulted thereafter to validate the developed DSS and to evaluate and thus incorporate reliability and credibility into the DSS.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University