OPTIMIZING THE FRACTAL COMPLEXITY OF THE NATURAL ENVIRONMENT IN RUMINANT PRODUCTION

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Keywords:

fractal complexity, agriculture, ruminants, natural environment

Abstract

Meat and milk are the major products in the ruminant industry. Ruminant production can be harsh on the environment because it needs a large area to supply feed for this animal. This is the main cause of deforestation as the forest is converted into new pasture. This paper aims to characterize the agricultural ruminant production practices which either maintain or enhance the natural complexity of the environment. The study made use of a quasi-experimental design using computer-generated graphics. The pre-treatment design is a computer-graphic of a fractal figure called Seirpinski’s carpet (dimension =1. 892789260) as referred to by Mandelbrot (1983). This fractal configuration is arbitrarily colored green for a representation of the dominant grass species and red-yellow-orange colors for the other species grass. The result revealed that a thirty percent increase in the number of replanted patches, increase the fractal dimension by .01 which is considered a significant alteration of the natural environment complexity. This also means that when the number of ruminants is increased by 30% of their current number, the natural landscape complexity will be significantly altered. 

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Published

2017-01-03