Abstract
The Venezuelan system of potato and potato seed production endures many deficiencies, while potatoes used to be an essential component of inhabitants’ food. To discover the deep roots of these deficiencies, we propose a simulation model of this system, and then combine structural properties of the model with simulation results in order to consolidate the validity of the model, elucidate some of its key features, and suggest a way to improve its fairness. The model is designed using the SocLab framework, a formalization of Systems of Organized Action, that considers how regulations emerge from balancing processes of power relationships between social actors.
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Notes
- 1.
Mucuchies, the capital of the Jose Antonio Rangel Municipality, is an Andean highland town. The municipality comprises a surface of 721 km2, and a population of 19.634 inhabitants in 2013. Muchuchies is at 8° 45′ of north latitude, 70° 55′ of west longitude, and 2.980 m over the sea level (the municipality is between 2200 and 4600 m over the sea level), with a mean annual temperature of 10.5 °C (for more about this, see: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Municipio_Rangel).
- 2.
We use the classification of the páramo as a “… regional placement in the northern Andes of South America and adjacent southern Central America. The páramo is the ecosystem of the regions above the continuous forest line, yet below the permanent snowline. It is a Neotropical high mountain biome with a vegetation composed mainly of giant rosette plants, shrubs and grasses” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Páramo).
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Terán, O., Sibertin-Blanc, C., Rojas, R., Romero, L. (2019). The Venezuelan System of Potato Production: A Simulation Model to Understand Roots of Deficiencies. In: Payne, D., et al. Social Simulation for a Digital Society. SSC 2017. Springer Proceedings in Complexity. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30298-6_8
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