X-farm: Modelling Sustainable Farming Systems

The aim of this chapter is to illustrate the structure of X-farm, a model to manage farming systems under energetic, economical and ecological perspectives, using the dynamic simulation approach. The structure of X-farm is composed by some integrated modules representing the main centres of farming costs and production: soil management, crop production and processing and energy production and administration. The dynamic simulation is addressed to find the best combination of crop and livestock activities in the farm plan. The objective of energy production is afforded by using crops and reducing the energy use by optimising energy-saving techniques; the ecological objective is formulated by accounting the CO2 emissions; the economic objective is targeted to profit maximisation, constrained by the level of achievement of the energy and ecology targets. The dynamic simulation is expected to help in improving the farm management performance with the simultaneous achievement of the three objectives. Finally, combining the X-farm model with GIS techniques, the analysis will be expanded to the agro-district planning to support the regional strategy for agro-energy production.