Paris, 24 March 2008


EFITA newsletter / 354 / European Federation for Information Technology in Agriculture, Food and the Environment


AGROVOC Thesaurus is now available online in 17 languages and more are coming!
AGROVOC Thesaurus, a multilingual, structured and controlled vocabulary designed to cover the terminology of all subject fields in agriculture, forestry, fisheries, food and related domains (e.g. environment), currently contains over 28 000 descriptors and around 11 000 Non-descriptors. The Thesaurus is now available in Arabic, Chinese, Czech, English, Farsi, French, German, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Lao, Polish, Portuguese, Slovak, Spanish, Thai and is under development for Russian, Moldavian, Turkish and Telegu.
Browse AGROVOC Thesaurus from: http://www.fao.org/aims/ag_intro.htm
Use AGROVOC via Web services: http://www.fao.org/aims/ag_webservices.jsp


AAB - Association of Applied Biologists - Conference - Knowledge Transfer - Best Practice
8 April 2008 - LONDON
See: http://www.aab.org.uk
Contact : Carol MILLMAN
E_mail : carol(a)aab.org.uk


Invitation to participate in the Global Agro-Industries E-Forum
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), in partnership with the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the Government of India (GOI), will convene a Global Agro-Industries Forum: Improving Competitiveness and Development Impact, In New Delhi, India during the period 8 to 11 of April, 2008 (www.gaif08.org).
The Global Forum will bring together senior-level policy-makers from national and local governments, food industry leaders, UN technical agencies, civil society organizations and agro-industry specialists to discuss experiences and approaches to foster the development of competitive agro-industries. The Forum also aims to raise awareness, exchange information, and promote partnerships for future action.

An e-forum is being conducted in preparation for twelve "competitiveness round table discussions" that will be held during the Global Forum. The purpose of this e-forum is two-fold:

(i) to open the roundtable discussions to the public, in an effort to identify issues and experiences to be brought to the attention of the round table panellists; and

(ii) to highlight areas of interest and priorities for a number of region specific workshops expected to be organized following the Global Forum.

The twelve "competitiveness roundtables" have been set up under three clusters to address what we consider to be the major drivers of agro-industrial competitiveness:

Cluster 1: Organization and Services
- Understanding markets
- Business linkages
- Organizing producers
- Establishing clusters

Cluster 2: Development and Innovation
- Meeting consumer requirements
- Branded and certified products
- Product development and innovation
- Human resources development

Cluster 3: Operations and Enabling Environment
- Improving productivity
- Attracting Investment
- Improving efficiency
- Infrastructure development

The e-forum can be accessed through the following web-site: http://www.gaif08.org/blog. Each roundtable topic introduces a thought provoking proposition to stimulate the start of the discussion. We wish to invite your contribution to any or all of the round table subjects.
The e-forum will continue up to the end of the Global Agro-industries Forum, 11 April 2008.
We look forward to a rewarding and dynamic exchange of opinions and thank you for further disseminating this invitation.
The Global Agro-Industries Forum Technical Committee


Annual PROGIS conference
14 – 15 April – VILLACH - South Austria/Carinthia
In January 2008 PROGIS launched it's GIS related holistic agro-software technology called "AGROffice complete" and offeres with "SaRAM" a specific education and training program for the adaptation and implementation of this unique integrated software-technology. (SaRAM stays for science assisting rural area management).

The outstanding features of AGROffice complete: It is a GIS-based integrated technology for farmers, farm advisors, agro-logisticians, for forestry, ecological tasks, rural community management, for risk and land management, or in general for the whole rural area management.

AGROffice complete is a planning-, calculation-, documentation- evaluation and advisory tool and users will cash in on it, by:
- a better management,
- optimising the whole work and production process
- having ongoing direct access to the latest expert know-how
- complying easily with EU- and regional legislations
- achieving a higher valuation of produced products
- a reduced bureaucratic work
- environmental care-taking
- automatically reporting
- high value advise
- significant costs reductions especially in the field of logistics
- intercompany comparisons etc.

AGROffice complete enables and boosts as holistic approach:
- education,
- capacity building,
- knowledge transfer,
- rural IT-access,
- land management by integrating local experts
- integrated public private partnership models, by integrating local experts.

> The beneficiaries
AGROffice complete provides tools for single users (agriculture, forestry, rural experts), user groups and for advisors. Latter ones will profit by having finally a software for managing up to several hundred agricultural enterprises with just one licence. Next to high-level advisory service to farmers they are able to create business plans, to analyse data for factorings or insurance purposes and they will play a crucial part in spatial planning and rural area management questions.

Public authorities and science organisations have to be integrated from the very beginning into the project and will benefit by a faster transfer of know how toward practitioners and get the chance to integrate farmers in total land management needs.

ICT partners will get a platform to develop on top of the basic tools their local requirements

Other direct or indirect beneficiaries are traders, export organisations, banks, insurance companies, sellers of agro-machines, sellers of agro-chemicals, customers.
 
Within the SaRAM program there are offered a range of education and training seminars to learn the software step by step – module by module. The collaboration of IT-experts and scientists is prerequisited. Educated persons will become qualified and certified experts in IT use for agriculture, forestry and rural area management and will get the qualification to adapt single software tools or the complete technology for implementing farm advisory systems or countrywide holistic agro-solutions and will be able to do their own add-on developments according to their market's request. After and between the single seminars, personal and individual trainings and a support service will be provided to all trainees.
See http://www.progis.com/en/?id=saram/saramreg.php
See: http://www.progis.com/events/progis08/


Agricultural Metadata Workshop
13 May 2008 – PRAGUE
The Czech Centre for Strategic Studies (CCSS), as Czech Coordination Office for the UNSDI initiative, WirelessInfo, Help Service Remote Sensing, Czech University of Life Science, EFITA, Informatics Lab, Agricultural University of Athens invite you to a Agriculture Metadata workshop, which will be organized as part of the Conference on Information Systems in Agriculture and Forestry (ISAF) in Prague on the 13th of May 2008 at the Agriculture University in Prague (for details see www.isaf.cz). The workshop will run from 9 00 till 14 00.
The objective of the workshop is to meet experts from different area of utilisation of metadata to discuss topics of standardization and integration of heterogeneous metadata
The topics of workshops are:
- UNSDI, INSPIRE and Metadata standardization
- Concept of Uniform Resource Management (URM)
- Metadata and e-learning
- Metadata and knowledge management
- Metadata, ontology and thesauri
For active participation please contact DR. Karel Charvat (charvat@ccss.cz) before 30 March by sending an e-mail with subject “Metadata Workshop” with title and abstract of your possible presentation. For actual participation on workshop please register yourself on the web pages of conference (www.isaf.cz). The participation in workshop is free of charge, but it does not include lunches, participation in the rest of conference events, proceedings and social events. If you would like to participate in the rest of conference, please register yourself as full participant for the conference.


GMES Workshop
14 May 2008 - PRAGUE
organized by The Czech Space Agency, the Czech Centre for Strategic Studies (CCSS) as Czech Coordination Office for the UNSDI initiative, WirelessInfo, Help Service Remote Sensing, Czech University of Live Science, EFITA
The objective of the workshop is to meet experts from different areas of GMES implementation and to stimulate and enhance exchange of information and international cooperation.
See: http://www.isaf.cz/
Contact : Karel CHARVAT
E-mail: charvat(a)lesprojekt.cz


Wheat and oilseed professionals compare production skills at DLG Field Days 2008 - Focus on yields and new strategies in Europe
24 – 26 June – GERMANY
Cropping strategies from eight European countries will once again be tested in the renowned DLG Field Days comparisons – this year held in the eastern German state of Thuringia from 24-26 June.
See: http://www.dlg.org/en/press/press_office.html?struts=publicArtikelDetail.do&artikelId=1624&spracheId=2&kategorieId=1&bereich=News
Contact: Malene CONLONG
E-mail: M.Conlong(a)dlg.org
 

5th International Symposium ISMOM 2008
24-29 November - Pucón, Southern Chile
We are very pleased to invite you to attend the 5th ISMOM and 2nd Interconference Commission 2.5 IUSS - 2008 organized by the Working Group MO "Interactions of Soil Minerals with Organic Components and Microorganisms" of the International Union of Soil Sciences, now Commission 2.5:Soil Physical/Chemical/Biological Interfacial Interactions. The meeting is to be held in Pucón, Southern Chile, on November 24-29, 2008, in spring time.
See: http://www.ismom2008ufro.cl
E-mail: ismom2008(a)ufro.cl


Agriculture in transition
See: http://www.agricultureintransition.eu/
Contact : Krijn POPPE
E-mail: krijn.poppe(a)wur.nl


SCHOOL: 1957 vs. 2007

Scenario: Jack goes quail hunting before school, pulls into school parking lot with shotgun in gun rack.
1957 - Vice Principal comes over, looks at Jack's shotgun, goes to his car and gets his shotgun to show Jack.
2007 - School goes into lock down, FBI called, Jack hauled off to jail and never sees his truck or gun again. Counselors called in for traumatized students and teachers.

Scenario: Johnny and Mark get into a fistfight after school.
1957 - Crowd gathers. Mark wins. Johnny and Mark shake hands and end up buddies.
2007 - Police called, SWAT team arrives, arrests Johnny and Mark. Charge them with assault, both expelled even though Johnny started it.
 
Scenario: Jeffrey won't be still in class, disrupts other students.
1957 - Jeffrey sent to office and given a good paddling by the Principal. Returns to class, sits still and does not disrupt class again.
2007 - Jeffrey given huge doses of Ritalin. Becomes a zombie. Tested for ADD. School gets extra money from state because Jeffrey has a disability.

Scenario: Billy breaks a window in his neighbor's car and his Dad gives him a whipping with his belt.
1957 - Billy is more careful next time, grows up normal, goes to college, and becomes a successful businessman.
2007 - Billy's dad is arrested for child abuse Billy removed to foster care and joins a gang. State psychologist tells Billy's sister that she remembers being abused herself and their dad goes to prison. Billy's mom has affair with psychologist.

Scenario: Mark gets a headache and takes some aspirin to school.
1957 - Mark shares aspirin with Principal out on the smoking dock.
2007 - Police called, Mark expelled from school for drug violations. Car searched for drugs and weapons.

Scenario: Pedro fails high school English.
1957 - Pedro goes to summer school, passes English, goes to college.
2007 - Pedro's cause is taken up by state. Newspaper articles appear nationally explaining that teaching English as a requirement for graduation is racist. ACLU files class action lawsuit against state school system and Pedro's English teacher. English banned from core curriculum. Pedro given diploma anyway but ends up mowing lawns for a living because he cannot speak English.

Scenario: Johnny takes apart leftover firecrackers from 4th of July, puts them in a model airplane paint bottle, blows up a red ant bed.
1957 - Ants die.
2007 - BATF, Homeland Security, FBI called. Johnny charged with domestic terrorism, FBI investigates parents, siblings removed from home, computers confiscated, Johnny's Dad goes on a terror watch list and is never allowed to fly again.

Scenario: Johnny falls while running during recess and scrapes his knee. He is found crying by his teacher, Mary. Mary hugs him to comfort him.
1957 - In a short time, Johnny feels better and goes on playing.
2007 - Mary is accused of being a sexual predator and loses her job. She faces 3 years in State Prison. Johnny undergoes 5 years of therapy.

Contact: I KITRON
E-mail: kitron1(a)terra.com.br


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