Paris, 8 May 2006


EFITA newsletter / 259 / European Federation for Information Technology in Agriculture, Food and the Environment


Point of view (in Fr-English): RSS
With RSS, users of our web sites have the possibility to immediately be informed of any update of the pages concerning their areas of interest. RSS may replace the newsletters and mailing lists that are very heavy to maintain. RSS imposes a new vision of the web, but don’t be too afraid: you will continue to receive the jokes of Mick and our other friends.
Contact : Guy WAKSMAN
Email : Waksman(a)acta-informatique.fr


Information Systems in Agriculture and Forestry - XII European Conference
16 - 17 May 2006 – PRAGUE - Czech Republic
See: http://www.iszl.cz


Building Spatial Data Infrastructure for Rural Development
15th May 2006 - Prague
> The Workshop is part of the conference "Information Systems in Agriculture and Forestry" in Prague.
> Objectives
Rural areas, comprising about 70% of Europe’s landmass, are at the core of coherent European existence. These areas can attain their full potential by implementing existing and new Web based GIS solution to improve the quality decision in public and private sector, increase employment opportunities for the rural area residents and strengthen the rural economy. This situation provides a rationale for the utilisation of a new spatial knowledge management system based on new geo-information technologies for more efficient collection, processing, analysis and dissemination of agriculture information. Such system has to be user-friendly and, at the same time, able to perform real scientific multi-criteria analyses.

Geographic Information System (GIS), Remote Sensing (RS) and Global Positioning System (GPS): These technologies are relatively new geo-information technologies particularly suitable for systematic assessment and monitoring over rural areas.
The development in rural areas has to be focused on:
- Standardisation
- Open solutions
- New methods of work
- Definition of spatial data infrastructure
- Data collection based on utilisation of new very high resolution satellite
- Location based services
- Mobile and wireless GIS solution and positioning
- Knowledge management and technology
See: http://www.iszl.cz
Contact: Karel CHARVAT
Email: charvat(a)wirelessinfo.cz


Broadband for Rural Development
15 May 2006– - Prague
> The Workshop is part of the conference "Information Systems in Agriculture and Forestry" in Prague.
> Objective
Decline in traditional manufacturing employment in urban areas has been partly compensated by growth in new industries, with an increased reliance on information and communications. These technologies also offer the opportunity for rural areas to compete on an equal basis in these new markets, provided the necessary telecommunications infrastructure is in place. Indeed there is evidence to suggest that there can be a drift back to the countryside except, perhaps, in remote areas.
New technologies and infrastructures for advanced communications are being introduced in towns, cities, and industrial areas and in certain more fortunate rural areas. Infrastructures for ISDN, ADSL and broadband systems tend to be focused on urban centres because of the greater unity and strength of the urban market for IT equipment and services. Rural areas will need comparable information technology, telecommunications and broadcasting infrastructures to urban centres if they are to compete for jobs and develop a more balanced economic activity with diversity of employment.
The real danger is that rural areas will continue to lag behind urban areas. If corrective steps are not taken, enabling ICT systems will tend to concentrate in cities and core regions and the opportunities for rural revitalisation through applications of these technologies will continue at a slow pace. The real danger is that with on-going reform and structural change to the Common Agriculture Policy that new types of rural based employment will not be found. The problems that rural areas in the existing Member States face will shortly become common-place in the New Accession Countries if lessons are not learned.
Nevertheless the infrastructure which can provide so many opportunities for rural regions can also pose a threat. A heavy reliance on communications may result in a further centralisation of activities. It is essential that ICT drivers are seen both as an opportunity and a threat. And what is an opportunity for one rural area may be a treat to another. In addition the developments in services and technologies are such that this not a static situation but is highly dynamic and requires monitoring and analysis of the “actualities on the ground” to distinguish marketing and political hype from reality.
Generally ICT deployment can reduce the isolation of rural areas. Because these technologies facilitate communications and the processing of information, the economic constraints associated by geographical isolation can become less significant. The cycle of economic decline in many rural areas can be broken. Opportunities for diversification of employment can revitalise economic activity and lead to increased disposable incomes, more stable and balanced communities, more demand for and better health services, education facilities, social services and better and more varied cultural activities.
Significantly ICT deployment will impact on all aspects of rural life, whether in farming, food processing, tourism, the delivery of "quality of life" services, tourism. local government etc.
See: http://www.iszl.cz
Contact: Karel CHARVAT
Email: charvat(a)wirelessinfo.cz


The Role of elearning in Rural Development
15 May 2006 - Prague
> The Workshop is part of conference Information Systems in Agriculture and Forestry in Praha (see www.iszl.cz).
> Objectives
Rural areas, comprising about 70% of Europe’s landmass, are at the core of coherent European Rural areas tend to loose younger people who are looking for employment or who are going to study at specific learning institutes. This drains the skills and knowledge base of rural areas. eLearning and its delivery through broadband would appear to offer an opportunity to re-vitalise rural areas, enabling rural renewal, both socially and economically. eLearning offers the potential for new types of knowledge based local employment. This appears to be critical with the decline of traditional farming and the need for re-skilling of local residents.
While young people will continue to leave rural areas better communications may help to retain more young people. It is critically important that young people are connected if only for the purpose of accessing more diverse learning opportunities. Nevertheless if these connections are through low speed and unreliable networks, then rural based learners are at a disadvantage. Broadband and especially fast broadband would appear to level the learning opportunities for rural residents vs. a v their urban counterparts.
Over the past decade there has been a marked reduction in the cost of implementing e-learning solutions. As a result more public organisations, and businesses, have added online courses and other forms of distance learning as part of staff development. Educational establishments whether primary, secondary or tertiary have gradually introduced eLearning modules as part of specific curricula. There are numerous examples of developments and the worldwide market continues to expand and consolidate.
Educational content preparation remains a significant component of eLearning development expenditure; however there are trends that are eroding these costs. Companies or learning institutions that do not want to re-invent the wheel can lease or purchase turnkey e-learning systems. More open source e-learning platforms are appearing on the market e.g. Moodle and ILIAS . Generally the “off-the shelf” content market is static and may even be in decline. Nevertheless the wider eLearning market is continuing to boom.
There are trends towards incorporating knowledge into enterprise systems. As organisations increasingly use intranets, the same tools are being used to deliver e-learning modules to staff. Often the modular nature of eLearning content allows employees to learn at their desks as an incremental process. In this manner eLearning delivers relevant, on-line, on-demand learning and knowledge. Too often the learn-first, apply later model doesn’t work. Course structures that work in a normal environment are often not suitable for business. Often staff need to learn “on the fly”. This trend is seen as part of a wider trend dealing with the re-organisation of business and working methods.
It is suggested that “knowledge workers” spend as little as 20% of their time adding value to their work. The rest of the time is spent in information gathering, rewriting reports and attending meetings. Communications and good communications are a prerequisite to being a knowledge worker and this applies whether the worker is based in rural or urban areas.
With job descriptions and work evolving at an increasingly fast rate, few learning institutions can produce suitably qualified graduates. Hence businesses depend constantly on “on-the job” training to remain competitive.
eLearning is becoming mainstream to many educational institutes. Many universities are repurposing their classroom and course content for distance learners. Classrooms without walls can see reductions in overheads whilst maintaining quality standards. It can also mean increased competition for local educational institutes.
The day of having to travel to specialised centres to discover and learn best practice is rapidly coming to an end. eLearning can connect the rural student to the urban expert and vice versa. The same quality education can be made available to all with suitable telecommunications. With reductions in the cost of courseware small businesses can afford the same high level learning modules as large conglomerates.
Some eLearning courseware use video game technology to provide effective simulations. Others grow skills through the use of games such as quiz shows. Where gaming simulations are used, interactivity can suffer if there is latency in the communications channel.
Increasingly education authorities are using eLearning to provide courses in badly served rural areas or to bring in on-line skills from other areas to augment a local need.
The advent of wireless and mobile technologies (sometimes called “mLearning”) has added to the flexibility of eLearning delivery at the local level.
See: http://www.iszl.cz
Contact: Karel CHARVAT
Email: charvat(a)wirelessinfo.cz


ENBIO® 2006 - International Trade Fair and Conference for Biomass Energy
5 -7 May - KASSEL
See: http://www.enbio.de/engl/index.htm


Enlargement + 2: what future for the rural economy in the new Europe ?
23 - 24 May - BRUXELLES
Voir : http://www.elo.org/index.php?page=pages/conferences/princeeuropeanagenda.php


HAICTA2006 in Volos-Greece: DEADLINE FOR ABSTRACTS EXTENDED to the end of May, 2006
20-23 September – VOLOS - Greece
See: http://haicta2006.users.uth.gr
Contact: Prof. Stergios TZORTZIOS
Email: stzortz(a)agr.uth.gr


1rst Annual Biocontrol Industry Meeting
23 - 24 2006 – LUCERNE (Switzerland)
See: http://www.abim-lucerne.ch/


Pesticide risk prediction and management tools (EU project)
FOOTPRINT is a research project in the 6th Framework Programme which aims at developing a suite of three pesticide risk prediction and management tools, for use by three different end-user communities: farmers and extension advisors at the farm scale, water managers at the catchment scale and policy makers/registration authorities at the national/EU scale. The first project deliverables are now available and these include a comprehensive project website and a detailed pesticide properties database.
See: http://eu-footprint.org/ppdb.html
Contact: Kathy LEWIS
Email: k.a.lewis(a)herts.ac.uk


Personalised location services across heterogeneous network (EU project)
See: http://liaison.newapplication.it/index.php
Contact: Nicole TURBÉ-SUETENS
E-mail: europe(a)distance-expert.com


Punctuation
A Panda enters a restaurant. He orders a chef's salad and eats it. Then he gets a gun from his bag, shoots one of the waitresses, and leaves the restaurant. He gets arrested by the Police and during his trial, the judge asks him the obvious question: "Why did you do this?"
The Panda takes a dictionary and shows him what it says about the Panda: "Big mammal living in Southern China. Eats, shoots and leaves".
Had the dictionary editor been attentive to punctuation, the Panda would have known that he is supposed to gently eat a diet of young bamboo shoots and green leaves...
Contact : Anne GOUYON
Email: editor(a)naturalguide.org


About the EFITA mailing list
You can use the efita moderated list (>3000 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 Email address from our mail list.