Publication Date

8-1991

Series Number

Miscellaneous Publication 28/91

Publisher

Department of Agriculture, Western Australia

City

Perth

ISSN

0725-847X

Abstract

MIDAS is a bioeconomic model of mixed crop/livestock farms in Western Australia. It selects farm management strategies which maximise profit subject to resource, technical and environmental constraints using the linear programming technique. This document provides a thorough documentation of the version of MIDAS developed for the "eastern wheatbelt" region. If you are learning to use MIDAS with the MARG menu driven system, you need to read the MARG manual as well as this documentation.

From early in the life of MIDAS, we gave a high priority to making the data and assumptions readily accessible in documentation and in microcomputer spreadsheet templates. Recently we have made the models easier to use so that they will be more widely accessible. This has involved the development of a new menu-driven program to run the model (called MARG) and an overhaul of the spreadsheet templates. This documentation supplements the user manual for MARG by providing instructions on how to use the spreadsheets to make changes to the model. It also includes all data and assumptions of the latest version of MIDAS for the eastern wheatbelt, a selection of model output, an overview of the structure of the linear programming matrix and a brief description of the farming system in Western Australia's eastern wheatbelt.

What is MIDAS?

The MIDAS computer models represent the economics and biology of farming in the wheat and sheep belts of Western Australia. There are versions in working order for the eastern wheatbelt, the northern wheatbelt, the south coast, the great southern and south-eastern parts of the central wheatbelt. Work was done some years ago on a central wheatbelt model although it has not been maintained due to lack of resources.

Number of Pages

167

Keywords

MIDAS (Model Integrated Dryland Agricultural System), Eastern Wheatbelt, Western Australia, Dryland farming

Disciplines

Agribusiness | Agricultural Economics | Agricultural Education | Agricultural Science | Agronomy and Crop Sciences | Business Administration, Management, and Operations | Finance and Financial Management | Natural Resource Economics

Comments

Manual and documentation for the Eastern Wheatbelt Model.

Version EWM91-4.

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