A Decision Support Tool to Investigate Emerging Complex Problems in the Dairy Industry

The purpose of this project is to augment the DairyORACLE simulation program with additive and structural changes that will facilitate its use as the "infrastructural" model for problem solving in the dairy sector. Producers as well as researchers are constantly proposing changes in inputs to the dairy operation. A producer must select from an ever increasing array of products for use on their dairy, where the definition of "product" might include a disease control program as well as a typical physical input unit. In a similar manner, researchers need to know the potential economic value of a new product or management practice in a dairy production system. The products and ideas from both groups often have multidimensional impacts (production, reproduction, survivability, etc.) on a dairy operation, and thus have complicated economic consequences. They can affect not only the average profits on a dairy farm, but also the variability of that profit. The changes to DairyORACLE will: 1) facilitate the operation of the model, 2) describe the epidemiological attributes of infectious disease, and 3) provide a suite of sophisticated economic analysis tools that can be used as a basis for decision making.