SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AND INNOVATION IN AGRICULTURAL AREAS: AN APPROACH BASED ON MATHEMATICAL MODELING AND COMPUTER SIMULATION

Abstract

In a context of multiple perspectives for the study of sustainable development in agricultural areas, this paper presents a quantitative analysis based on the development of a mathematical model and on the implementation of a computing algorithm. The objective of the mathematical model construction was to investigate the dynamics of diffusion of innovations as, for instance, the propagation of knowledge or technologies among small rural producers. The main obtained results based on the simulation were: a) the technology characteristics seem to have no influence on the speed of the adoption of new technologies. This result can be associated to the fact that agricultural activities already need high risk investments; b) the social ties in the producer networks evidenced to be an important mechanism for diffusion of technologies. The mechanisms of social ties, in general, involve investments of low costs because normally they already exist among the producers. Finally, the results suggest that efforts for popularization of the technology, subsidies from the government, invigoration of the relationship among producers and interactions inside a social network can constitute the main strategies for the increase of the speed in the adoption of new technologies.