Effects of climatic and price uncertainty on the value of legume crops in a Mediterranean-type environment

This study investigates the impact of price and yield uncertainty on the value of new legumes and their place in a Mediterranean region of Western Australia. It uses the stochastic bioeconomic farming system Model of an Uncertain Dryland Agricultural System (MUDAS) to integrate climatic, agronomic and economic information. A robust finding is that chick peas in rotation with wheat on some clayey loam soil classes are a profitable addition to optimal farm plans, increasing the certainty equivalence of profit on a typical farm by 7%. By contrast, modelling results for field peas and faba beans suggest they are likely to form a minor role in the farming system, being occasionally selected under certain price and weather-year conditions. Modelling results highlight a farmer's attitude to risk and the proportion of the farm area with suitable soils as important determinants of the role and value of the new legumes in the farming system. These findings, if supported by further investigations, have important implications for breeding and agronomic research. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.