Paris, 1 February 2010


EFITA newsletter / 447 / European Federation for Information Technology in Agriculture, Food and the Environment


To read this newsletter on the efita.net web site...
See: http://www.efita.net?d=6727


International conference “Discovering, Mining and Managing Complex agricultural Data”
1 – 3 July - Crete, GREECE
See: http://www.ise.ufl.edu/cao/CAODM2010/index.htm
Contact : Petraq PAPAJORGJI
E-mail: petraq(a)ufl.edu


ICTs for Agricultural Extension Book
The book contains 16 chapters and deals about ICT4AE in 28 countries.

>>> General Outline of the Chapter Content
1. Overview of National agriculture scenario, National extension systems-scope and importance
2. Need of ICTs in agricultural extension/ Rationale for experimenting/proposing e-agriculture/ cyber extension
3. Brief account of IT scenario in the country during last two decades and IT penetration in rural areas
4. National policy on IT in agricultural extension
5. Case studies / review of information on “Best (ICT) practices” of e-agriculture/ cyber extension (or) “Innovations” in ICTs for agricultural extension
- Information village projects/ Village knowledge centre/ Information Kiosk/ Touch screen kiosk/ Mobile telephony etc.
- Mobile ICT units for agricultural extension
- Web portals/ data base/ digital networks for agricultural extension services provision
- Web based discussion forums/ video-conference/ net meeting etc.
- Offline multimedia CDs, Decision support systems/ expert systems etc.
- Innovative Radio – community radio/ TV programmes/ initiatives
- Online farm magazines/ news papers/ farm advisory publications etc.
- Open Distance Learning (ODL) projects for agricultural technology transfer
- Any other ICT initiatives and innovations
6. Issues related to ICTs application for agricultural extension (Infrastructure, connectivity, content, capacity building, community participation, management, co-ordination, policy support, scaling-up and sustainability etc.)
7. Government, private, NGO, individual research project initiatives, public-private partnership models, business/ entrepreneurship models
8. Impact of ICTs in agricultural technology/ information dissemination, technology adoption, agricultural production
9. Lessons/experiences
10. The way forward/ policy implications/conclusions & recommendations
See: http://www.saravananraj.net/education.htm#5
Contact: R. SARAVANAN
E-mail: saravananraj(a)hotmail.com


Alternative and Sustainable Production for Tobacco Cultivated Areas in the European Union
See: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/activities/committees/studies/download.do?language=en&file=27631#search=%20Alternative%20and%20Sustainable%20Production%20for%20Tobacco%20Cultivated%20Areas%20in%20the%20European%20Union%20
By Udo Kienle (Universität Hohenheim), Hans-Peter Kaul (Universität für Bodenkultur), Basil Manos (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki), Petros Lolas (University of Thessalia), Pilar Solano (ADESVAL) and Flaminia Ventura (University of Perugia)
Agriculture and rural development
15.06.2009 - Available in EN 136 pages
The EU has been supporting tobacco sector since 1970 through a Common Market Organisation (CMO). The regime has been substantially reformed many times and most recently CAP reform 2005 aims to phase out the subside payment for tobacco cultivation.
This study determines diversification alternatives to the Tobacco cultivated areas that will ensure high income for the farmers, equal to the tobacco crop, and will maintain the highest number of both holdings and hectares in production and the highest number of employees in the Tobacco growing regions
Contact: Udo KIENLE
E-mail: Udo.Kienle(a)uni-hohenheim.de
Information provided by Basil MANOS
E-mail: manosb(a)agro.auth.gr


Increasing acceptance for biogas applications
The EU project BiogasAccepted is due to complete its 30 month duration in March of this year. Co-financed by the Intelligent Energy Europe program, BiogasAccepted’s main focus has been to increase acceptance of select biogas applications while developing an online questionnaire tool and other resources to help biogas operators. The project is led by the Austrian organization STUDIA with partners based in Italy, Spain, Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia.

Three different types of biogas applications have been chosen for the project: for vehicle fuelling, connecting to the natural gas grid, and combined heat and power (CHP). Using our online questionnaire tool, 21 cases have been uploaded and subsequently analyzed using seven different comparison dimensions.
The results thus far have been interesting. In many cases the neighbours of the facilities tended to have a high level of trust in the plant operators. There does not seem to be a large variation in the responses between the different regions (e.g. Eastern and Western Europe), but a lack of general knowledge concerning biogas has been observed in some countries. Actions for increasing acceptance need to take these differences into account.

The project has most recently completed a handbook to help biogas operators increase acceptance amongst their neighbours.
The handbook is derived from the project partners' experiences, and gives helpful information on what it deems to be the three keys to acceptance: networking, public relations, and the use of the online questionnaire tool. The handbook, along with the tool itself and many other resources from the project are easily accessible by registering on
BiogasAccepted's website. Here, one can use the tool's benchmarks to help to identify areas of interest for acceptance problems and find suggestions to improve the situation.
See: http://www.biogasaccepted.eu/app

Contact: Wolfgang E. BAASKE
E-mail: baaske@studia-austria.com


Cherie Blair's Chauffeur
Cherie Blair is touring the countryside in a chauffeur-driven car.

Suddenly, a cow jumps out into the road, they hit it full on and the car comes to a stop.

Cherie, in her usual charming manner, says to the chauffeur:

'You get out and check - you were driving.'

The chauffeur gets out, checks and reports that the animal is dead.

'You were driving; go and tell the farmer,' says Cherie.

Five hours later, the chauffeur returns totally plastered, hair ruffled with a big, stupid grin on his face.

'My god, what happened to you?' asks Cherie.

The chauffeur replies: 'When I got there, the farmer opened his best bottle of malt whisky, the wife gave me a slap-up meal and the daughter made love to me.'

'What on earth did you tell the farmer? 'asks Cherie.

'Well, I knocked on the door, and when it was answered, I said to them:

'I'm Cherie Blair's chauffeur ... and I've just killed the cow'.

Contact: Mick HARKIN
E-mail: harkin(a)iol.ie


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