Using a whole-farm modelling approach to assess prospective technologies under uncertainty Javad Torkamani Department of Agricultural Economics, College of Agriculture, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran Received 16 December 2003; received in revised form 20 July 2004; accepted 21 July 2004 Abstract New technologies may be adopted by farmers if they fit farmersÕ resource endowments, objectives and goals, and attitudes towards risk. In this paper, the role of whole-farm model- ling in technology evaluation is discussed. An assessment of prospective technology options for wheat and sugar beet in a study region in Iran is presented. Data on new technologies were collected from farmers of Fars province, staff of the Shiraz Branch of the Agricultural Research Centre, the Regional Branch of the Extension Organization, and from the Shiraz UniversityÕs Research Centre. An extension of utility efficient programming to non-linear dis- crete stochastic programming, was adopted to evaluate prospective technology options. Results of the study demonstrated the merits of the technique, and it was found that farmersÕ total net revenue would increase considerably if adoption was to occur. Ó 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Whole-farm modelling approach; Prospective technology; Utility efficient-discrete stochastic programming 1. Introduction The supply of arable land in most developing countries is effectively fixed or declining. Obtaining higher yields is thus the major way of increasing agricultural 0308-521X/$ - see front matter Ó 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.agsy.2004.07.016 E-mail address: torkamanijavad@yahoo.com. www.elsevier.com/locate/agsy Agricultural Systems 85 (2005) 138–154 AGRICULTURAL SYSTEMS