RATIONALE AND LIMITATIONS OF THE DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS FOR DAIRY FARMS: A REVIEW
Keywords:
decision, tool, dairy farmAbstract
This review aims to summarize the current knowledge about the logical basis of the decision support systems and highlighting future research and development needs for their effective adoptions by dairy farmers. Thus, an emphasis was given on the barriers to their wider uptake in the farming community. The article investigates scientific and professional literature regarding the decision support system framework, according to different factors affecting dairy farm profitability, such as optimal replacement decisions, reproductive performance, economic efficiency, and mortality rates. Accordingly, the description of the various methods being applied was covered. Special attention was drawn on the sustainability agenda, also linking to the idea of benchmarking farm performance and modeling impacts of different management decisions. Benchmarking helps to identify where strengths and weaknesses lie within a farm business. The decision support tools can be used to run various scenarios in the field of structural and technical change on dairy farms. Moreover, they can be tailored for dairy farms that differ in intensity and scale. The multi-actor approach during the development phase of the tools, also enabling dairy farmers to co-design them, may improve the acceptance of co-created solutions at the farm-level. It is also important to drive scientists and extension specialists to provide better understandable outputs by the sets of specific training.
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