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Our approach includes the production of food, energy, and carbon offsets in a way that enhances profitability at the farm-level while enabling surrounding communities to benefit from high quality food products, environmental improvement, economic development and, ultimately, quality of life. Using an optimal spatial control framework and an agent-based simulation model, we apply this analysis to the case of pasture-based beef (PBB) in West Virginia. Both an intertemporal component and a spatial component are involved since clustering systems are enhanced when key players are interconnected over space. This is accomplished by using an optimal spatial control framework as the basis of a NetLogo agent-based model (ABM). This model is intended to provide a foundation for developing agglomeration economies in which other locations are able to supply resources to given locations - or to serve as input markets - by taking advantage of the spatially integrated nature of the agriculture industry. The spatial component provides the basis for regional economic development through clustering among the agricultural and other sectors sharing locally produced inputs/outputs in the supply chain.

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Inocencio Rodriguez has a B.S. in Agricultural and Applied Economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an M.B.A. from the Metropolitan University of Puerto Rico-Cupey. He also has a Ph.D. in Natural Resource Economics from West Virginia University-Morgantown and is currently professor of economics at the University of Puerto Rico-Arecibo

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