Browsing by Author "Nell, Casper Jan-Hendrik"

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    The financial implications of different crop rotation systems for the Goue Ruens
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2019-12) Nell, Casper Jan-Hendrik; Hoffmann, Willem H.; Strauss, J. A.; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences. Dept. of Agricultural Economics.
    ENGLISH SUMMARY : The world population is expected to increase to 10.9 billion by 2100 and consequently demand for food will increased. Increasing food production will most likely place more pressure on natural resources, and lead to environmental problems. These challenges create an urgent need for improved crop production systems and conservation focussed agriculture to aid in the management of such challenges. Conservation farming hold the three pillars of crop rotation, minimum soil disturbance and cover cropping. This study focus on the crop rotation aspect of conservation agriculture in the geographical region of the Goue Rûens. The main research objective was to evaluate the whole-farm long-term financial implications of different crop rotation systems within the Goue Rûens area. The crop rotation systems consisted of cash crops and livestock grazing on pastures. This study placed significant emphasis on the interactions between the crops. The systems approach served as the scientific foundation for this study, and entailed integrating the expert knowledge of relevant role players. The farming system is inherently complex, therefore the proposed method had to accommodate and integrate the interrelated factors of the system. Systems thinking was identified as a suitable tool for managing the associated complexities. The Delphi method was followed to integrate scientific crop rotation trial data with expert knowledge to assess the impacts of systems on whole farm level. Farm-level, multi-period budget modelling was employed to evaluate crop rotation systems in terms of the expected financial performance of the farm system under different rotation systems. A farm-level budget model incorporates crop rotation systems with associated investment requirements and production activities by the integration of physical, biological and financial factors. Standard accounting principle present the results in a format that famers understand. A typical farm served as point of departure for the model construction. Expert knowledge was employed to validate the assumptions regarding the physical properties of such a typical farm. A whole-farm multi-period budget model approach was used to evaluate the financial implications of each identified crop rotation system within the Goue Rûens area. This whole-farm multi-period model is able to integrate each system’s individual components, with their particular investment requirements and climate variability. Financial modelling, as a method, was successful in achieving the research goal. Each of the individual crop rotation systems included in the Tygerhoek crop rotation trial was simulated in a whole-farm context through a multi-period budget to calculate the expected financial performance of each system. The output gained from this research method allowed for the financial comparison of the various systems, using the internal rate of return on capital investment (IRR). The range of the IRRs for the different crop rotation systems at a whole-farm multi-period level was relatively narrow. No system was observed that significantly outperformed any of the other respective systems. It did however indicate the importance of combinations of crops and wheat as well as barley in the same system.