Economic Niches in Tropical Agriculture

The aim of this paper is to describe a methodology for recommending forage crop species for smallholder farmers in the tropics, targeted to biophysical and socio-economic niches, incorporating both available data and expert knowledge. Agriculture in the tropics and subtropics is complex and heterogeneous, both biophysically and socio-economically and although it is important that species are matched to biophysical environments, it is equally important that they are matched to the unique socio-economic situation and management practices of a farmer. This is difficult to satisfy within obvious practical constraints and Bayesian modelling has been identified as an appropriate method for predicting the probability of a given species being suitable for a given environment or niche, using expert knowledge to evaluate sparse and uncertain data. As a case study, a spatially enabled decision support tool designed to assist in the decision-making process of targeting forages in Central America is under development. It will use existing data and expert knowledge to mimic the decision-making process involved in selecting forage varieties for specific socio-economic and biophysical environments. Validation and verification of the model are discussed, as well as the technological specifics of the tool development and deployment