The development of software to support planning conversion to organic agriculture

Abstract

Planning is essential to the successful conversion of conventional to organic farming. Currently, advisors base planning on personal experience and expertise, historical and market data. The process can be time consuming and expensive. A new software package designed to support this process has been developed. The software enables the user to construct conversion scenarios for a farm over a period of up to fifteen years. The software calculates profit and loss and cash flow reports and nutrient and forage budgets for each year, thus helping to identify any potential economic, nutrient or forage problems in the plan. A beta version of the software will become available during 2001 as part of the EMA 2001 software system.