Paris, 7 April 2008


EFITA newsletter / 356 / European Federation for Information Technology in Agriculture, Food and the Environment


Happy days
I was very happy (but disappointed later) when Rabin and Arafat shook hands. I was happy for our Europe when the Good Friday agreement was signed in Ireland, when the Berlin wall fell, and today I am happy to see the reopening of the Ledra street in Nicosia. Let's have a thought for our Cyprus friends!
See: http://www.france24.com/20080403-cyprus-border-crossing-opened-closed-nicosia-ledra+&navi=EUROPE?q=node/1086150


International PROGIS Conference
14–15 April
- to get an edge on information on how advanced  ICT enhances a sustainable, prosperous agricultural development
- to meet key-players and stakeholder in the field of agriculture, environment and forest to find IT-based solutions, improving the agricultural management in your  country

SaRAM, the education and training program to obtain the prerequisites to implement integrated  ICT-technologies for coping with the challenges of agriculture, forestry and environment be led in with the International PROGIS conference on April 14th and 15th .

Well known people from the worlds of politics, science, economy and practise will shape these two days. Thereby attendants will get a good overview of the current situation of agriculture in various countries and the legal framework for food/feed production of the EU that will be of high importance. Future challenges and expectations, agricultural and environmental management is faced with, will be highlighted together with the visions for a future prosperous farm management.

After the introduction of the single software-tools of “AGROffice complete” practitioners will show how they do profit and what success they achieved by using it. The conference provides an excellent platform for awareness raising, know-how transfer and exchange of experiences. Discussions on future farm business and negotiations on projects as to precision farming will be initiated and discussed amongst participants.

On Wednesday, April 16th, the actual seminar starts with in depth education and training on “WinGIS”, the GIS engine of PROGIS and AGROffice base modules. Thereby participants will be equipped with the necessary software licenses and after 3 days they will take home the corresponding know-how to adapt the software for their country. An ongoing support will accompany their activities concerning the translation of the surface and the adaptation of the expert-data until the 2nd seminar in October.
See: http://www.progis.com/en/?id=saram/saramreg.php
See: http://www.progis.com/events/progis08/
Contact Karin STROBL
E-mail: strobl(a)progis.com


Erratum: Summer University on Information Technology in Agriculture and Rural Development 2008
30 June - 1 July 2008 – BUDAPEST - Hungary
See: http://odin.agr.unideb.hu/su2008/


Operational research: an international journal (ORIJ) - Call for papers for the Special Issue: Modeling, optimization and data mining techniques applied in Agriculture & Environment
Guest Editor: Dr. Petraq Papajorgji

New technologies continue to emerge and their master and use in agriculture requires that farmers gather more information and make more complex technological choices. In particular, the advent of Internet has opened vast opportunities for communication and business opportunities within the agricultural community. But at the same time, it has created another class of complex issues that need to be addressed sooner rather than later. Farmers and agricultural researchers are faced with an overwhelming amount of information they need to analyze and synthesize to successfully manage all the facets of the agricultural production.
This daunting challenge requires new and complex approaches to farm management. A new type of agricultural management system requires active cooperation amongst multi-disciplinary and multi-institutional teams and refining of existing and creating new analytical theories with potential use in agriculture. Therefore, new management agricultural systems must combine the newest achievements in many scientific domains such as agronomy, economics, mathematics and computer science to name a few.
This volume will combine efforts of many researchers in different areas with the goal of providing the readers with a wide spectrum of advanced applications in agriculture and environment. Only unpublished work will be accepted.

Topics of interest are:

- Optimization techniques applied agriculture and environment,
- Data mining techniques in agriculture and environment,
- UML (The Unified Modeling Language) and its applications in agriculture and environment,
- OCL (Object Constraint Language) and its use in agricultural and environmental systems
- MDA (Model Driven Architecture)
- Crop modeling techniques and applications,
- Decision Support Systems and other topics of interests.

Proposed papers will be examined by a group of three reviewers to ensure high quality of the volume.

Important dates:

November, 30, 2008 is the deadline for accepting papers
March 30, 2009 is the deadline for delivering the volume
Around end June 2009 for volume publication

Guidelines for the preparation of the manuscripts are available at the journal’s website: http://www.springer.com/business/operations+research/journal/12351

Manuscripts should be submitted electronically, through the editorial manager of ORIJ, which is available at: http://www.editorialmanager.com/orij

Important note: At the first stage of the submission process, authors should select “SI: Optimization in agriculture” from the article type list.

Contact: Dr. Petraq PAPAJORGJI
Email: petraq(a)ufl.edu


Call for Journalists participation
> CTA (with the support of GTZ) is organizing an international seminar on the implications of global climate change for sustainable agricultural production in ACP countries. The seminar will focus on the effects of climate change on agricultural production systems. A series of cross-cutting issues (land degradation, pest and disease, renewable energy/ bio fuels, lack of water management, food security, migration and impact on traditional ways of life) will be used to analyze the implications of climate change for rural livelihoods.
In order to maximize information sharing and sensitize decision makers, CTA is launching a call for ACP journalists to collect local stories and perspectives on the various topics covered by the seminar.
Journalists are asked to submit a short proposal, outlining their ideas. These pitches will be reviewed by a panel of experts who will select the best 15 story proposals. CTA will then commission the articles (and offer a fee of Euro 120) and an editorial coordinator will coach the journalists.
The articles will be featured on the seminar website and sent out to a wide Media community for information sharing. Writers of the best 2 articles will be invited to work on the daily coverage of the seminar, to be held October 26-31, 2008, and produce a daily digest of short articles and interviews with participants and presenters. Travel, accommodation, visa, per diem and a financial compensation will be offered.
Applicants can propose either a story or an interview. They should base their material on the following issues: How climate change affects agriculture in their country (focus on one system)? What have been the consequences for rural livelihoods? How do agriculture and climate change interact? Solutions - mitigation and adaptation – proposed by researchers and farmer communities? What would be the role of decision makers and policies in mitigating impact?
> Articles must be strictly related to climate change. Preference will be given to proposals that highlight local perspectives and voices, showcase existing research or adaptation initiatives and feature real people working in the field (producers, NGO staff, climate change experts). We are not interested in articles that focus on future scenarios.
> Send us a proposal of 250 words maximum before April 21st.
Journalists should meet the following criteria:
- Be nationals of an ACP country;
- Experienced journalist (send a brief description of your profile)
- Have the capacity to publish the article in the local media (please quote media and editor)
See: http://ctaseminar2008.cta.int/
Contact: S. BEL
E-mail: bel(a)cta.int


En el Colegio Militar Ruso
En el Colegio Militar Ruso, un general es invitado a dar una conferencia sobre los problemas potenciales y las estrategias que se usan.

Al final, se pasa a una sesión de preguntas y respuestas.

Un oficial pregunta: -¿Tendremos que luchar en la Tercera Guerra Mundial?
- Si camaradas, así parece.

- ¿Y quién va a ser nuestro enemigo?
- Todo indica que será China. Toda la clase queda sorprendida.

Finalmente un oficial pregunta: - Pero camarada General, nosotros somos 150 millones y ellos 1500 millones de personas. ¿Cómo podríamos ganar?

- Bueno, piénsenlo. En las guerras modernas, no es la cantidad sino la Calidad. Por ejemplo, en el Medio Oriente, 5 millones de judíos han estado peleando contra 50 millones de árabes, y los judíos han ganado siempre.

Un oficial pregunta tímidamente:
- Pero señor... ¿Tenemos suficientes judíos?

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


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