Regional and National Models
With the assistance of Dr. John Graham and Chris Webber from the University of British Columbia a regional
mathematical programming model of agriculture in Canada was designed and constructed. The model
conntained 29 regions (22 of which were in the prairie provinces) of primary agricultural production in the
ten provinces of Canada. The model came to be known as the Canadian Regional Agricultural Model (CRAM)
and, with further modifications and up-dates, has become a major analytical tool for agricultural policy
evaluations in Canada.
Following the construction and testing of CRAM, the model was used to evaluate the expected consequences of
changes to two major transportation subsidy programs in different regions of Canada: the Western Grain
Transportation Act and the Feed Freight Assistance Act. It also was used to estimate the value lost to prairie
farmers from not having high yielding varieties of medium quality wheat licensed for use by Canadian
farmers until the mid 1980s. The model also was used to estimate the rate of return to several research
programs in Canada.
With the assistance of Prof. Suren Kulshreshtha from the University of Saskatchewan,results from farm level
models and CRAM were integrated into input-output models to study the expected impacts of various drought
mitigation schemes (including irrigation) in Saskatchewan agriculture.