What do farmers think about climate?

Andrés Barsky, an Argentine geographer collaborating in the project, conducted interviews with 60 AACREA farmers in the two study regions (north of Buenos Aires and north of Córdoba). The goal was to assess (a) what farmers knew about climate of their region, (b) what they did not know, and (c ) what they thought they knew, but was not correct.

As a result of these interviews, a series of knowledge gaps and misunderstandings were identified. These gaps were addressed in an article titled “Cómo hacer del pronóstico climático una herramienta útil” [How to turn a climate forecast into a useful tool], published in the  April 2008 issue of the AACREA magazine.

>> See full text of article (PDF, 1644 KB)

Mike North visits Buenos Aires

During March 7-12, 2008, Dr. Mike North visited Buenos Aires to interact with Argentine project participants. Mike is Deputy Director of the Center for Complex Adaptive Agent Systems Simulation at Argonne National Laboratory, and an expert in design and implementation of agent-based models.

Topics discussed during the visit included (a) ABM coding standards, (b) validation of ABMs, (c) evolution towards a full land rental market (currently the model includes an exogenous rental price).

During his visit to Buenos Aires, Mike had a chance to sample Argentine gastronomy.