Chinese vegetable production cooperatives supply their members, mostly smallholder farmers, with a rotation schedule for the year. Since vegetable prices are not stable throughout the year, designing a rotation schedu...Chinese vegetable production cooperatives supply their members, mostly smallholder farmers, with a rotation schedule for the year. Since vegetable prices are not stable throughout the year, designing a rotation schedule that maximizes expected profits, distributes farmers' profits more equitably, maintains the diversity of produce in the market, and reduces the risk of pests and diseases, requires adaptive, price-contingent rotation schedules(here, called "self-adaptive adjustment"). This study uses an agent-based simulation(ABS) to design self-adaptive rotation schedules that deliver these aims. The selfadaptive adjustment strategy was more profitable for farmers when faced with price volatility, and more equitable as well. This work provides a decision-support tool for managers of Chinese vegetable production cooperatives to provide farmers with more profitable and equitable rotation schedules.展开更多
基金was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC, 71301077)
文摘Chinese vegetable production cooperatives supply their members, mostly smallholder farmers, with a rotation schedule for the year. Since vegetable prices are not stable throughout the year, designing a rotation schedule that maximizes expected profits, distributes farmers' profits more equitably, maintains the diversity of produce in the market, and reduces the risk of pests and diseases, requires adaptive, price-contingent rotation schedules(here, called "self-adaptive adjustment"). This study uses an agent-based simulation(ABS) to design self-adaptive rotation schedules that deliver these aims. The selfadaptive adjustment strategy was more profitable for farmers when faced with price volatility, and more equitable as well. This work provides a decision-support tool for managers of Chinese vegetable production cooperatives to provide farmers with more profitable and equitable rotation schedules.