Expert systems for animal feeding management .2. Farmers' attitudes

Feed management in grazing situations involves many complex decisions. Most New Zealand farmers rely on mental figuring, intuition and experience to make these decisions. Successful easy-to-use formal models are not available. This study, being Part II of a wider project, was designed to explore whether expert systems might provide useful assistance to farmers in making feed management decisions as it is clear from production figures that efficiency improvements are possible. It was also designed to explore the reasons the trial farmers held the views expressed through, largely, recording and relating them to their personal attributes. The trial farmers believed the three expert systems developed for components of the overall feed management problem were useful, and had positive economic value. It was also clear their personality, age and education level were major factors in explaining the views held.