Paris, 8 January 2007
EFITA newsletter / 291 / European Federation for Information
Technology in Agriculture, Food and the Environment
Did you know that this newsletter is the engine of a living lab?
But our newsletter in French with its around 24000 subscribers is a more
powerful one.
See (as recommended hereafter by Sjaak WOLFERT): http://www.openlivinglabs.eu/
EFITA 2007 / List of agricultural ICT companies in your countries
On the efita web site, I maintain a list of French Agricultural ICT companies
with the addresses of their web sites. There are small lists of Austrian and
Italian companies. Could you send me similar lists for your countries? We could
present a complete European catalogue at EFITA 2007.
See: http://www.efita.net?d=5035
Contac: Guy WAKSMAN
E-mail: waksman(a)acta-informatique.fr
EFITA 2007 / I sent a first summary (provisional version)! (GW) AND YOU?
>> Title
Situation of French Agricultural ICT in 2007
>> Summary
From different surveys performed in France, we try to describe the situation
of Agricultural ICT in France and to emphasize the most impressive trends observed
for the last years in different productions from arable crops to cattle growing,
as well as at regional level.
In the first part, we present the most significant results of the above mentioned
surveys, and in a second part we adopt a more qualitative approach and describe
the most innovative and / or successful services used by farmers and based on
the Internet. A third part presents the respective roles and strategies adopted
by public, professional and private organisations aiming at offering services
and goods to farmers. Our conclusion is an attempt to draw a few perspectives.
>> Authors
Waksman Guy, ACTA Informatique, waksman(a)acta-informatique.fr
Escriou Hervé, ITB, Escriou(a)itbfr.org
Rognant René, FIEA, rrognant(a)fie-arsoe.com
Gentilleau Christian, TIC-AGRI, c.gentilleau(a)tic-agri.com
Could we try to organise a session at EFITA 2007 about the situations of
agricultural ICT in our countries? (GW)
All the documents of our last seminar (20 December 2007) about agricultural
information standardisation and exchange
See: http://www.acta-informatique.fr?d=6597
About our interactive WebTV project
See: http://www.acta-informatique.fr?d=6632
8th International Symposium On Modelling In Fruit Research And Orchard Management
1 – 4 July 2007 - EINSIEDELN - Switzerland
e symposium title says it all - the use of models in relation to orchard
management and fruit research. The scientific scope of interest includes, but
is not limited to:
- Plant protection models: pest phenology and management including decision
support systems
- Combination of pest- and disease models with and physiology and/or growth
modelling
- Climate-plant interactions with special focus on global change issues
- Combination of plant architecture modelling, plant protection and physiology
- Physiology and growth responses in general
See: http://www.hortplus.com/ISHSModel/index.htm
Agro-food business embraces 'Living Labs' as a new strategy for innovation
Innovations in agriculture work out the best in learning networks or living
labs. That was the conclusion of the 15th biennial conference of the Dutch association
for ICT in agriculture, food and the environment (EFITA-member VIAS), held on
the 30th of November 2006. Entrepreneurs, governmental bodies, research and
education work together on new innovative solutions. This goes beyond the traditional
farmers’ study groups.
According to Hans Schaffers from the Telematics Institute, the core of ‘living
labs’ is that the laboratory comes to the users and that they are involved in
the complete process of innovation. The model of living labs has recently become
important in Europe under the Finnish EU-chairmanship. Usually, ICT plays a
major role in living labs. Also in agro-food business, ICT plays a key role
in new innovations to improve quality and efficiency, as well at farm level
as at chain level. During the day, the involvement of knowledge institutes,
universities and schools was regularly emphasized.
The conference was visited by approximately 160 participants form all kind of
different backgrounds. The large number of subjects was spread over four parallel
sessions on the organization of learning networks, public-private knowledge
infrastructure, connecting to the production chain and geo-information supply.
A few representative examples of presentations are: ‘Restaurant of the future’,
‘Safe food production: from victim to entrepreneur’, ’Digital invoice-processing:
easy, fast and simple’ and ‘Virtual earth: the platform for a geo-living lab?’
There was also a small exhibition where app. 10 organizations demonstrated their
products and services related to the conference’s theme.
The conference chairman Bart-Jan Constandse (in everyday life chairman of the
Dutch farmer’s association LTO) concluded that innovation was removed from the
exclusive ‘boffins club’ (emphasizing technology only) and has become a cooperative
task of entrepreneurs, researchers, students and ICT-workers, in order to create
added value.
More information (in Dutch): http://www.viassymposium.nl
See also http://www.openlivinglabs.eu/
Contact: Sjaak WOLFERT
E-mail: sjaak.wolfert(a)wur.nl
Visionary... (British joke)
A married man left work early one Friday afternoon. Instead of going home,
he spent the weekend (and his money) partying with the boys.
When he finally returned home on Sunday night, his wife really got on his case
and stayed on it.
After a couple of hours of swearing and screaming, his wife paused and pointed
at him and made him an offer.
"How would you like it if you didn't see me for a couple of days?!?"
The husband couldn't believe his luck, so he looked up, smiled and said, "That
would suit me just fine!!"
Monday went by, and the man didn't see his wife. Tuesday and Wednesday went
by and he still didn't see her.
Come Thursday, the swelling went down a bit and he could see her a little out
of the corner of his left eye.
Contact : Bernard P AUXENFANS
Email: auxenfansb(a)attglobal.net
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