5. Agriculture

Agriculture in Western countries is going digital, and modelling is one of the mainstays of this change. Germany, Australia, France, Italy, the United States and the Netherlands are the forerunners in the use of digital modeling in agriculture, recently joined by China. Numerical simulation makes it possible to assess the impact of agricultural practices, soil quality and climate on yields and the environment. Applications are highly varied, enabling farmers, companies and public agencies to estimate the performance of different production methods in a variety of situations. Despite the sometimes considerable uncertainty of their simulations, models are frequently used to predict the environmental impact of agriculture by assessing the emissions of particles, greenhouse gases or pollutants attributable to farming practices.

Generally speaking, agricultural modelling...