About the CoMSES Model Library more info
CoMSES Net maintains cyberinfrastructure to foster FAIR data principles for access to and (re)use of computational models. Model authors can publish their model code in the Computational Model Library with documentation, metadata, and data dependencies and support these FAIR data principles as well as best practices for software citation. Model authors can also request that their model code be peer reviewed to receive a DOI. All users of models published in the library must cite model authors when they use and benefit from their code.
Please check out our model archive tutorial or contact us if you have any questions or concerns about archiving your model.
CoMSES Net also maintains a curated database of over 7500 publications of agent-based and individual based models with additional metadata on availability of code and bibliometric information on the landscape of ABM/IBM publications that we welcome you to explore.
Rural Industries Supply Chain (RISC) model
Jiaqi Ge Gary Polhill | Published Mon May 13 12:59:21 2019The code shared here accompanies the paper at https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0208451. It simulates the effects of various economic trade scenarios on the phenomenon of the ‘disappearing middle’ in the Scottish beef and dairy farming industries. The ‘disappearing middle’ is a situation in which there is a simultaneous observed decline in medium-sized enterprises and rise in the number of small and large-scale enterprises.
Contract farming in the Mekong Delta's rice supply chain
Hung Nguyen | Published Tue Feb 5 06:06:17 2019We study three obstacles of the expansion of contract rice farming in the Mekong Delta (MKD) region. The failure of buyers in building trust-based relationship with small-holder farmers, unattractive offered prices from the contract farming scheme, and limited rice processing capacity have constrained contractors from participating in the large-scale paddy field program. We present an agent-based model to examine the viability of contract farming in the region from the contractor perspective.
The model focuses on financial incentives and trust, which affect the decision of relevant parties on whether to participate and honor a contract. The model is also designed in the context of the MKD’s rice supply chain with two contractors engaging in the contract rice farming scheme alongside an open market, in which both parties can renege on the agreement. We then evaluate the contractors’ performances with different combinations of scenarios related to the three obstacles.
Our results firstly show that a fully-equipped contractor who opportunistically exploits a relatively small proportion (less than 10%) of the contracted farmers in most instances can outperform spot market-based contractors in terms of average profit achieved for each crop. Secondly, a committed contractor who offers lower purchasing prices than the most typical rate can obtain better earnings per ton of rice as well as higher profit per crop. However, those contractors in both cases could not enlarge their contract farming scheme, since either farmers’ trust toward them decreases gradually or their offers are unable to compete with the benefits from a competitor or the spot market. Thirdly, the results are also in agreement with the existing literature that the contract farming scheme is not a cost-effective method for buyers with limited rice processing capacity, which is a common situation among the contractors in the MKD region.