Agri-Wise Macedonia - A New Decision Support System for Farm Management in Contrast to Current Practices

The objective of this paper is to test a new model for farm business management, as a tool for farm management planning for extension and advisory application, and compare it to current practices in Macedonia. The model used is the Farm Business Plan Agriwise, developed by the Swedish Agricultural University (SLU) and adjusted to Macedonian conditions. The plan represents a basis for appraisal of the profitability, capital return and financing from different operating alternatives. Besides exploiting the business plan as an internal tool for self-evaluation and strategic planning, it also functions as a material for external presentation. The proposed decision support system brings data from different disciplines together to an entirety needed in farm business planning. In this context, relevant experiences from the literature are reviewed. The research method includes cases where advisors compare the case farm advisory situation, based on currents methods in contrast to an application of the new Agriwise model. The advisors’ conceptions are then summarized in terms of advantages and disadvantages rising from the use of this model for the farm’s investment and production structure decisions. The expected outcome is to obtain an assessment of the new model by advisors as well as a foundation for further adaptation of the model to Macedonian conditions and use in the advisor-farmer cooperation.