Paris, 25 October 2004


EFITA newsletter / 181 / European Federation for Information Technology in Agriculture, Food and the Environment


USA voting machine
It is only for fun. I hope that our American colleagues will not mind…
See: http://www.acta-informatique.fr/telechar/Betises/voting_machine.wmv


Wanted : jokes in German, Italain, Spanish (English is not compulsory)
The jokes in French are published in our weekly newsletter in French.
Contact : Guy WAKSMAN
E-mail : waksman(a)acta-informatique.fr


More questions
- In your country, are data exchanges along the agri-food chains based on data dictionaries?
- Is EDI or XML used to transfer information along the agri-food supply chain?
- Are crop husbandry software programmes using GIS facilities for further traceability process?
- Is the plot number (in the EU) used to characterise the production of a given field?
Contact : Guy WAKSMAN
E-mail : waksman(a)acta-informatique.fr


Call for papers: EFITA / WCCA 2005 Joint Conference
+ The 5^th Conference of the European Federation for Information Technology in Agriculture, Food and Environment and
+ The 3^rd World Congress on Computers in Agriculture and Natural Resources
Universidade de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, Vila Real, Portugal, 25 - 28 July 2005
See: http://www.agriculturadigital.org/efitaandwcca2005


The future of the Sheep and Goat Dairy Sector
28 - 30 October 2004 - Zaragoza
The main objective of the Symposium is to provide the economic stakeholders (producers, dairy industry, and professional organisations), administration and scientists with a global revision of the situation of the sector and its evolution. It will focus mainly on the latest developments in dairy technology and nutrition applied to the sheep and goat sectors.
See: http://www.fil-idf.org/sheepgoat2004/GeneralInformation.htm


EU project QualityLowInputFood congress
6 - 9 of January 2005 - University of Newcastle upon Tyne.
The Congress is jointly organized by the British Soil Association and 3 separate EU projects (QualityLowInputFood, Blight MOP and Organic HACCP) which all focus on improving the quality and safety and reduction of cost in the European Organic and Low Input Food Supply Chains
The congress is targeted at producers, processors, traders, advisors, quality assurance specialists, researchers and other stakeholders in organic and low input food supply chains.
See: http://www.qlif.org/forum/conf1/first/index.html


Some great IT-based solutions from New Zealand
See: http://www.hortplus.com/
Contact: Trevor Atkins
E-mail: trevor.atkins(a)hortvision.co.nz


UK crop management systems
> UK forecast for Light leaf spot [a disease of oilseed rape (colza)]
See: http://www3.res.bbsrc.ac.uk/leafspot/
> UK forecast for Phoma (also an oilseed rape disease)
See: http://phoma.csl.gov.uk/
> Various UK crop or pest decision support systems
See: http://www.rothamsted.bbsrc.ac.uk/examine/consortium/p1rothamsted.html
> UK nitrogen management
See: http://www.rothamsted.bbsrc.ac.uk/aen/sundial/sundial.htm
> Belgian system for growth and septoria disease prediction on wheat
See: http://www.fymy.ucl.ac.be/proculture/)
See: http://www.rothamsted.bbsrc.ac.uk/ppi/ppiindex.htm
Contact: Jonathan WEST
E-mail: jon.west(a)bbsrc.ac.uk


Web application for traceability and crop management in Italy
> Our web application Quadernodicampagna.it let farmers insert data on line in order to trace crop operations and assign id-number to every sale they do. QDC.it is developed with ColdFusion and can exchange data with other systems - such as the one installed in transformation industries.
See: http://www.quadernodicampagna.it
> Workshop about Traceability in Italy
See: http://www.aitica.it/WStracciabilita.html
Contact: Cristiano SPADONI
E-mail : cristiano.spadoni@imageline.it


Pip fruit orchard management programme
Each fruit plot is geographically referred to by its registration number, also known by CAP authorities. The GIS-interface to manage these fruit plots is not available to the fruit growers themselves (local unit), but in the central unit. Nevertheless, registration number of fruit parcels is used as identification key in the system. Apart from fruit management registration, the decision support system is able to provide assistance for crop protection, fertilisation, environmental impact (eg. beneficial insects), variety selection.
Contact : Wim VANDEN AUWEELE
E-mail : wvandenauweele(a)bdb.be


EDI and crop management software programmes in Denmark
In Denmark, The Danish Agricultural Advisory Service has developed a number of such software programmes for data interchange and crop management.
One of the most promising systems is the internet based service called "Dansk Markdatabase" (Danish Field database). The Danish Field Database is a framework of field related software products for building a complete farm management system based on GIS.
The geodatabase in The Danish Field Database is able to store all relevant field area related data, i.e. tabular and spatial data. In order to control data access in a web system, the Danish Field Database is equipped with personal login and a legislation system. The farmer can in this way legislate other farmers, advisers and authorities to access his personal data. Hence, the service is unique in the way that both the extension service and the farmer can fill in and access data for a specific farm.
Several online DSS-tools is founded on top of the database i.e. 'Markkort Online' (Field Map Online), a web based map drawing system specific designed to match the needs of practical farm management. Field Map Online operates with real world GPS-coordinates on a background layer of high resolution (40 cm ground resolution) digital aerial ortophotos. The field drawing system allows the farmer to draw field polygons, buildings, wet holes etc.  with a precision of 1 meter.
'Planteværn Online'  (Plant Protection Online) is another DSS, which aims to help the farmer to decide whether a specific damage threshold is reached. The system gives actual decision support on active ingredients, tank mixtures and recommendations on reduced pesticide dosages.
Parallel to this we market the Windows-based software package: 'Bedriftsløsning' ( The Integrated Farm Management System) which is a package with >25 different DSS-tools for practical Farm management with +10.000 users. You are welcome to study our web-sites:
www.bedriftsloesning.dk and www.markkort-online.dk. (only in Danish).
Contact: Jens Bligaard
E-mail: jeb@landscentret.dk


The joke in German in the latest newsletter threw me until I remembered Alta Vista's Babel Fish translator:
http://world.altavista.com/
Here is how it was translated... enough to get the punch line!
A Viennese and castle countries are involved to campen, develop their tent and fall asleep. Some hours later the Viennese wakes castle countries on "Schau into the sky and says to me which you siehst!" The castle countries says: "Ich see millions of Sternen." The Viennese says: "Was you think jetzt?" The castle countries considers one minute. "Astronomisch seen, it says to me that millions of galaxies and trillions of potienziellen planets are there. Astrologically it says to me that the Saturn is located in the lion. Time-moderately seen it says to me that it is approximately 3,15 o'clock. Theologically it says, it to me is obvious the fact that the gentleman is all powerful and we all small and insignificant is. It seems meteorological, as if we would have tomorrow a beautiful day which say it dir?" The Viennese is for one moment quiet and says: "Praktisch seen it says, someone to me our tent gestohlen."
Contact: Trevor Atkins
E-mail: trevor.atkins@hortvision.co.nz


About the EFITA mailing list
You can use the efita moderated list (>2600 subscribers) to announce any event / product / web site / joke (!) related to IT in agriculture, environment, food industry and rural areas
If you do not wish to receive our messages, please see: http://www.efita.net to remove your e-mail address from our mail list.