Summary
This paper presents RuFaS, an open-source, modular whole-farm simulation platform designed to support interdisciplinary research and sustainable dairy production. The platform integrates biophysical modules across animal, manure, soil, crop, and feed storage systems to enable comprehensive evaluation of management strategies, environmental interventions, and productivity outcomes whilst identifying trade-offs across biological, environmental, and management domains. The authors highlight the platform's application in greenhouse gas accounting, technology innovation evaluation, and its transparent, collaborative GitHub-based development model as a foundation for advancing dairy sustainability research.
UK applicability
RuFaS is a US-developed platform; UK applicability would depend on parameterisation to UK climate, soil, and farming conditions, and alignment with UK-specific policy frameworks such as the Environmental Land Management schemes and the Emissions Trading Scheme. The open-source architecture potentially allows UK researchers and practitioners to adapt the model, though local validation would be necessary.
Key measures
Model structure and functionality; integration of biophysical modules; application to greenhouse gas accounting, nutrition, breeding, and manure management innovations; modular architecture capability for uncertainty analysis
Outcomes reported
The study presents RuFaS, an open-source, modular whole-farm simulation platform that integrates biophysical modules for animal, manure, soil, crop, and feed storage systems to evaluate management strategies and productivity outcomes in dairy production. The platform enables hypothesis testing, multi-objective analysis, scenario evaluation, and identification of research gaps through simulation of interactions and trade-offs across biological, environmental, and management domains.
Topic tags
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