GTEM-Food
GTEM-Food was developed under the project entitled “CSIRO-ABARES Global Agriculture and Food Modelling Collaboration” funded by CSIRO and ABARES. The project objectives are to improve the dynamic analysis and understanding of technological development, climate change, and policies related to the agri-food systems in Australia and abroad to support Australia in transitioning to a net zero emissions economy. GTEM-Food keeps most technologies and functionalities of GTEM-C (our core model) but enriches the agri-food production and consumption structures and relevant database. Climate impacts in GTEM-Food are also advanced to capture better the impact of climate change on agricultural production structures.
In GTEM-Food’s database, livestock and food-processing sectors in the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) database were split into sub-sectors using the information in the Food and Agriculture Biomass Input-Output Model (FABIO) and IMPACT-Fish model. In particular, the animal sector was disaggregated into live cow and live sheep and other animal products were split into live pig and live poultry sectors. Meat was split into beef meat, lamb meat, pig meat, and poultry meat, and fishery was disaggregated into aquaculture and wild catch fishery.
In GTEM-Food’s model code, there are two food-processing sectors developed, called (1) the bovine meat processing sector, which uses beef and lamb in two separate processing activities, and (2) the fishery processing sector, which separates aquaculture and wild catch fishery activities. For household consumption, food was split into four different categories (animal-sourced foods, staples, other crops, and processed foods) that allow the substitution within each group. The climate damage function was also developed by collecting the impacts from the Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project (ISIMIP) on yields of wheat, rice, maize, and soy in different climate change scenarios.
GTEM-Food is ideal for studying the dynamic impact of technological development (e.g., input-output efficiency improvement, fuel efficiency, resource productivity, negative emissions technologies, etc.), agricultural policies/taxes/subsidies, climate change policies (carbon taxes, emissions trading schemes), damage of climate change, net zero emissions transition, and others.