Die Bodenkultur - Journal for Land Management, Food and Environment

K. Pažek, Č. Rozman und R. Haas:

Selection of business alternatives of organic-direct marketing farms

A complex decision process based on simulation scenarios and multi-criteria decision analysis

Summary

This paper presents a multi criteria model for planning and decision making on small organic and direct marketing farms. The model KARSIM 1.0 combines financial cost benefit analysis (CBA) and multi-attribute decision making methodology based on expert systems DEX-i and Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP). In the first stage the technological and financial cost benefit analysis were conducted for each production alternative. The results were further evaluated with expert systems DEX-i and AHP considering all possible criteria influencing the food processing decision. The model was tested on two selected model farms. The real impact of the developed model is its practical value as a decision support tool for planning and decision making on real organic farms. Key words: Multicriteria decision analysis, organic farming, KARSIM 1.0, DEX-i, AHP.