Paris, 25 September 2006


EFITA newsletter / 276 / European Federation for Information Technology in Agriculture, Food and the Environment


Next EFITA congress in 2007 in Glasgow
2 - 5 July 2007 - Glasgow Caledonian University, Scotland, UK
See: http://www.efitaglasgow.org/
Contact: Caroline PARKER
Email: c.g.parker(a)gcal.ac.uk


Point of view (in Fr-English): Decision Support Systems for farmers or for advisors
I think that I already discussed in the efita newsletter this erroneous distinction between Decision Support Systems for farmers and these ones for advisors. But for our recent seminar about ICT and crop protection (19 September), this subject was again on the table.
I do believe that to try to describe DSS according their uses by farmers or advisors is a non-sense. At the end of our project "To computerise to make easier farm management", we had an interesting conclusion by Philippe Boullet from the French Accounting Centres. Philippe described three attitudes of farmers towards ICT, accounting and DSS:
- Farmers who choose to delegate certain management functions, ie to ask advisors to help them to make decisions
- Farmers who prefer to pilot themselves the main management operations
- Farmers "in between" who "overcome' these choices and may pilot by themselves some operations when choosing to subcontract others
The important point is that the same farmer may change form one year to the following one. There is nothing definitive in this kind of choice. But at the end of the day, farmers aiming at piloting their management operations need the same tools than advisors…
Contact: Guy WAKSMAN
Email: waksman(a)acta-informatique.fr


Erratum – 6ECPA + 3ECPLF
Newsletter/275 included an invitation to submit Abstracts (300 to 600 words) to 6ECPA (European Conference on Precision Agriculture). This should also have included a reference to the joint meeting, 3ECPLF (Precision Livestock Farming). Abstracts can still be submitted up to 10 October, via http://www.6ecpa.gr/ecpa-sub-abst.html. Click on "submit an Abstract".
Contact: Spyros FOUNTAS
Email: sfountas(a)agr.uth.gr


From Ukraine
My name is Dmytro, I am from Ukraine, I work for The Institute of Hydraulic Technologies and Land Reclamation of the Ukrainian Academy of Agrarian Science. We would like to cooperate with EFITA in all possible ways. Now we are busy at GIS technologies researches.
Contact: Dima Pona
Email: demon44@ukr.net


ICT Observatory - perception survey
Technological innovation is taking place at a breathtaking pace. Free or low-cost /open source web applications / services are increasingly available to the public at no or minimal cost. Some of these fall under the umbrella term "Web 2.0". Though it lacks a precise definition, Web 2.0 generally refers to Web services that let people collaborate and share information online. In contrast to the first generation of Web offerings, Web 2.0 applications are more interactive and give users an experience similar to a native desktop application as opposed to a static Web page.
An ICT/ICM Innovation Team has been established within CTA. Its mandate includes monitoring and testing ICT innovations in order to propose these to partner organisations for consideration and adoption in developing countries. In the context of its new Strategic Plan, CTA has recast its concept of ICT Observatory as a living initiative meant to stimulate technological innovation within CTA and among partner organisations.
Through the administration of this short questionnaire (7 questions only), the CTA ICT/ICM Innovation Team would like to organise the next International ICT Observatory Workshop based on demands and perceptions of experienced development practitioners and researchers who are acquainted with modern ICTs.
See: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?A=146731413E50176


Online public consultation on RFID
The questionnaire asks your opinions on development and deployment of RFID technology, ways to stimulate its use, mitigation of potential negative impacts.
See: http://www.rfidconsultation.eu/
See: http://ec.europa.eu/yourvoice/ipm/forms/dispatch?form=RFID
Contact : Véronique MÉNEZ
Mél : veronique.menez(a)euroquality.fr


FAO's activities on Agricultural Information Management Standards go into Wikipedia
Wikipedia is the world's fastest-growing, cooperative, free content, on-line encyclopaedia. There were 600,000 visitors per day by the end of 2005; there are more than 4 million articles in 200 languages. The amazing success of Wikipedia is not only due to its "open edit" policy, or its collection of high-level knowledge on all conceivable themes. It represents a global community which holds to a particular web philosophy; many of its followers are top-ranking specialists of the same breed which feeds its domain knowledge freely into the Open Archives movement.

FAO's work for the promotion and furthering of information management standards for the world agricultural community is now documented on the Wikipedia pages. At present, the principal arguments treated on Wikipedia are:
* The Agricultural Metadata Element Set (AgMES), the metadata standard developed by FAO for the description and discovery of agricultural information resources;
* The Agricultural Ontology Service (AOS) set up to serve as a reference initiative that structures and standardizes agricultural terminology in multiple languages for use of any number of systems in the agricultural domain and provide several services, with the aim of achieving more interoperability between agricultural systems;
* FAO's Multilingual Agricultural Thesaurus (AGROVOC), structured to cover the terminology of all subject fields in agriculture, forestry, fisheries, food and related domains (e.g. environment); and
* The Agricultural Information Management Standards (AIMS) initiative, working to facilitate information sharing, and to overcome the problems created through resources being located often in proprietary applications and using dissimilar data models. Frequently, information system designers are unaware of existing design methodologies, data description standards or freely available tools or applications. This project is working to promote existing standards and contribute to the creation of new ones.

See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agmes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agricultural_Ontology_Service
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGROVOC
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agricultural_Information_Management_Standards


One Flaw In Women

By the time the Lord made woman,
He was into his sixth day of working overtime.
An angel appeared and said,
"Why are you spending so much time on this one?"
And the Lord answered, "Have you seen my spec sheet on her?
She has to be completely washable, but not plastic,
have over 200 movable parts, all replaceable
and able to run on diet coke and leftovers,
have a lap that can hold four children at one time,
have a kiss that can cure anything from a scraped knee to a broken heart
-and she will do everything
with only two hands."

The angel was astounded at the requirements.
"Only two hands!? No way!
And that's just on the standard model?
That's too much work for one day.
Wait until tomorrow to finish."

But I won't," the Lord protested.
I am so close to finishing this creation that is so close to my own heart.
She already heals herself when she is sick
AND can work 18 hour days."
The angel moved closer and touched the woman.
But you have made her so soft, Lord."
"She is soft," the Lord agreed,
"but I have also made her tough.
You have no idea what she can endure or accomplish."

"Will she be able to think?" asked the angel.

Contact: I. KITRON
Email: kitron1(a)terra.com.br


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