The Agricultural Policy Simulator is a spatially explicit and dynamic agricultural structure model that has been in existence for 20 years and can be adapted to real agricultural regions using empirically collected data. In the process, characteristic farms for the respective region are represented by computer agents. With the aim of maximising profits respectively household incomes, these agents react to price or policy changes by renting or leasing land, changing their production system or dropping out of agricultural production. The individual agents compete with neighbouring farms on the land market for vacant land. This interaction can be used to simulate the development of agricultural regions.
The now available AgriPoliS information portal www.agripolis.org offers a variety of information and resources on the model. In addition, a research data management system for AgriPoliS applications and the link to the AgriPoliS code on GitHub are integrated into the information portal. This enables researchers to organise and document their data and their processing in a standardised and structured way. In doing so, transparency and reusability of research software and data are improved, collaboration between researchers is facilitated and the efficiency and quality of research projects are increased to meet the requirements of Open Science and the FAIR principles (i.e. Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable).
