Paris, 15 March 2004


EFITA newsletter / 150 / European Federation for Information Technology in Agriculture, Food and the Environment


Workshop on European Funds for Rural Development in the Knowledge Based Society
Czech Republic, 19 April 2004, Sec u Chrudimi
Technology Centre of the Czech Academy of Science - Czech National Contact Point Organisation for 6 Framework Program together with the Czech Centre for Strategic Studies and association EDUCEU will organise on 19th April 2004 in Sec u Chrudimi, a workshop "European Funds for Rural Development in the Knowledge Based Society". This workshop will be a part of an annual international conference Sec2004 – Information System for Agriculture, Forestry and Rural development (20th and 21st April 2004, http://www.ccss.cz/sec/sec2004en/index.htm).
This event is organized shortly before accessing new countries to EU and has two main goals:
- To present new instruments of EU as a tool supporting building rural knowledge based society and also introduce this new instruments for accessing countries
- To support creating new international teams for European projects focused on rural knowledge society.
The program will be divided into two parts:
> The first part will present Czech experts and also Commission staff new possibilities of financing building and development of knowledge rural society using European instrument:
- FP6 as the possibility for rural area development
- Recap of EU and Czech funds convenient for rural area development and accessible to new EU countries
> The second part will be an international brokerage for a preparation future FP6 projects.
Three basic themes have a high priority for the Czech Republic: 3MFOR ; @rural IP ; Open Agriculture Platform.
Contact: Karel CHARVAT
mailto:charvat@lesprojekt.cz


European Multimedia Forum: 3-days training course
19 to 21 April 2004 - Brussels
See: http://www.e-multimedia.org/accelerator
See: http://www.ettecproject.net/course.htm


6 th International Conference on Chain and Network Management in Agribusiness and the Food Industry – Dynamics in food Chains and Networks
27-28 May, 2004 - Wagenigen – The Netherlands
See: http://socialsciences.wur.nl/bk/congres


Second Field Robot Event, June 17 & 18, 2004 - Wageningen, the Netherlands
In this contest students, but others as well, enter a competition with autonomous field robots. The challenge is to navigate autonomously in a maize field.
We hope that even more teams than last year will enter the competition. The challenge will be to navigate in a maize field. Detailed information of the event can be found on our Internet site www.fieldrobot.nl. Dutch national television has already shown interest for a popular scientific quiz show: Hoe?Zo!.
In the 2003 Field Robot Event students, companies and research institutes from several European countries participated. This year we have already received requests for information from even more. We hope this event will give the public a better idea of innovation in agriculture and help to create a more positive image through this "clean and green" way of technology.
Contact: Mrs. ir. Ellen de Jong
mailto:ellen.dejong@wur.nl


16TH International Joint Course On Agricultural Education 2004
30th June to 4th July 2004 - Ireland
The theme of the conference is competency based agricultural education and lifelong learning for farmers.  This course is aimed primarily at specialist persons in agricultural education (directors, lecturers and tutors).
See: http://www.tnet.teagasc.ie/jointcourse
Contact: Ann-Marie Ryan
mailto:amryan@kildalton.teagasc.ie


92nd EAAE-Seminar: Quality Management and Quality Assurance in Food Chains
Goettingen / Germany, March 2 - 4, 2005
See: http://www.eaae.uni-goettingen.de
Contact : Prof. Dr. Ludwig Theuvsen
mailto:Theuvsen@uni-goettingen.de


New research projects in Technology-enhanced learning
See: http://www.cordis.lu/ist/directorate_e/telearn/index.htm


TreeGrOSS: Tree Growth Open Source Software
See: http://treegross.sourceforge.net/


A news for Mike: in Normandy…
…10000 cattle breeders continue to use the Minitel 300000 times per year.
Contact: Christian TESSIER
mailto:ctessier@cra-normandie.fr


Truly heart-warming story
This is truly a heart-warming story about the bond formed between a little girl and some builders. This makes you want to believe in the goodness of people and that there is hope for the human race.
A young family moved into a house next door to an empty plot. One day a construction crew turned up to start building a house there.
The young family's 5-year-old daughter naturally took an interest in all the activity going on next door and started talking with the workers. She hung around and eventually the construction crew, all of them rough diamond types, more or less adopted her as a kind of project mascot.
They chatted with her, let her sit with them while they had coffee and lunch breaks, and gave her little jobs to do here and there to make her feel important.
At the end of the first week they even presented her with a pay envelope containing £5. The little girl took this home to her mother who said all the appropriate words of admiration and suggested that they take the money she had received to the bank the next day to start a savings account.
When they got to the bank the clerk was equally impressed with the story and asked the little girl how she had come by her very own wage packet at such a young age.
The little girl proudly replied, "I worked all last week with a crew building a house."
"My goodness gracious," said the clerk, "and will you be working on the house again this week, too?"
The little girl replied, "I will be if those useless c*nts at B & Q ever bring us the f*cking plasterboard".
Contact: Ian HOUSEMAN
mailto:ian.houseman@adas.co.uk


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