Fuzzy Modelling of Farmer Motivations for Integrated Farming in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta

Sustainable development in ecological, economic and social dimensions is a major concern for agricultural development. Recent views on sustainable agriculture development recognize farmers as major actors in shaping the development trajectory. In conventional approaches to multi-actor sustainable development modelling, farmers are regarded as utility maximizers. However, this view is incongruent with the daily practice of human decision making, which does not satisfy the conditions for simple utility maximization. Therefore, there is a need for alternative ways to model human decision behavior. In this paper, we consider a fuzzy approach to modelling farmers' decision process. We study farmers' motivations for adopting integrated farming systems in the Vietnamese Mekong delta and develop a hierarchical fuzzy model for this purpose. We design the model by using knowledge from experts, and assess its accuracy by using data obtained from the farmers.