Paris, 22 February 2010
EFITA newsletter / 449 / European Federation for Information Technology in
Agriculture, Food and the Environment
KTBL-Tage 2010: "Automatisierung und Roboter in der Landwirtschaft"
21 - 22 April - ERFURT (DE)
Sehen: http://www.ktbl.de/index.php?
id=261&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=1351&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=10&cHash=b42abd1f78
Sehen: http://www.ktbl.de/fileadmin/PDFs/Tagungsflyer/KTBL-Tage-Einladung.pdf
Information provided by Kees LOKHORST
E-mail: Kees.Lokhorst(a)wur.nl
Workshop on Knowledge Discovery for Rural Systems (KDRS'2010)
21-24 June - 2010 - HYDERABAD, India
See: http://sites.google.com/site/kdforruralsystems/
In conjunction with The
14th Pacific-Asia Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining from
This workshop will examine the application of AI and Knowledge discovery techniques
to improve the productivity and sustainability of rural and agricultural systems.
The focus of the workshop will be a forum to discuss how these techniques
are improving the productivity of rural and agricultural sectors . Such techniques
can improve the delivery of information for decision making by farmers, extension
officers, agricultural researchers to improve agricultural sustainability,
selecting suitable varieties, managing pests and diseases and for land use
planning on a local and regional basis.
A number of computer science and agricultural researchers are collaborating
to examine how the use of such KD techniques can contribute to rural sustainability
by effectively examining the government and research databases. For example,
AI techniques such as neural networks and data mining provided a better alternative
to the use of traditional statistical techniques in choosing the best crop
varieties or most appropriate management for pests and diseases, soil salinity.
These techniques could also be used to predict the effects of changes in climate,
rainfall and temperature as a result of climate change
>>> Workshop Scope
The Workshop on Knowledge Discovery for Rural Systems encourages the following topics (but is not limited to) |
||
- Theoretical foundations in Data Mining |
- Improving Data Quality of rural products and services
|
|
>>> Workshop Submission
All papers must be submitted electronically to Workshop Organizers at l.armstrong(a)ecu.edu.au
in PDF format only. Submitting a paper to the workshop means that if the paper
is accepted, at least one author should attend the workshop to present the
paper. Attendees are required to register at PAKDD 2010 website.
We are currently negotiating with a publisher to a selection of the workshop
papers in a special issue of the International Journal of Agricultural and
Environmental Information Systems. We will keep you posted on the same.
>>> Workshop paper submission deadline: 2nd April 2010
>>> Worshop Co Chairs
Leisa Armstrong |
Neil Dunstan |
Dean Diepeveen |
Technological Innovation Adoption - Constraint Commonalities
Summary of the 2009 EFITA/JIAC plenary session
*E. Gelb, H. Auernhammer, P. Wagner, S. Blackmore
The Cross-Theme Session: “Constraint Commonalities of Technological Innovation
Adoption” was convened during the 2009 EFITA/JIAC conference. It followed
a plethora of presentations focused on ICT developments and applications (www.efita.eu).
The session attempted to decipher ICT development and adoption constraint
commonalities as guidelines to explain “why significant ICT potential benefits
for agriculture and rural development remain unrealized”. Cause and blame
are often assigned to soaring ICT development and equipment costs, distorted
policies, investment in “wrong priorities”, squandering scarce Human Capital
and inadequate end user proficiencies. Cross evaluation of constraint commonalities
can go a long way to rectify this situation - at least by avoiding repetition
of past mistakes.
Session background presentations focused on constraints gleaned from the 10
year EFITA ICT Adoption Questionnaire data sets; Research and Farmer insights
of Precision Agriculture adoption - concepts, expectations, results and constraints
over time; an overview of ICT state of the art and public sector perspectives,
a panel discussion and a summary. Hopefully the main insights reviewed will
be instrumental in anticipating future innovation adoption constraints and
consequently formulating effective responses.
The Questionnaire data-sets since 1997 identify constraint commonalities.
Contrary to expected improvements inherent in learning curves 90% of the 2009
Questionnaire replies still identify ICT Adoption as a major problem of public
concern, with public funding justified for ICT services and solutions for
farmers. (http://departments.agri.huji.ac.il/economics/voet-gelb.pdf).The
following consistently suggest why:
- lack of ICT applications “tailored” to end-user needs;
- insufficient ICT proficiency to match application complexities;
- inadequate synchronization updating with production, market and environmental
realities and dictates;
The commonalities reviewed stressed evolving realities - “farmers” and “farm-workers”
today may not be rural residents; a “farm” may not be a rural location neither
focused on agricultural production nor “farmland” based re bio-manufacturing,
aquaculture, hydroponics, genetically engineered “test tube” products - frozen
embryos; human – machine interfaces are becoming a norm; physical inputs (information,
climate control) and production decisions may be dictated remotely rather
than by local agronomic best practices; a plethora of ISO and GAP dictates,
health and/or environment directives must be considered - the list is long
and growing. The assumption that an adoption constraint once mastered will
neutralize any similar innovation constraint in the future is no longer indisputable.
The key session-highlighted constraint commonalities are categorized for convenience
into four ICT development and adoption entities - Research, Extension, End
users (“Farmers”) and Service providers. The insights are governed by an a-priori
assumption of a free and full four way flow of information – in itself a major
innovation. In addition recognition that since innovation complexity increases
with development sophistication “in house” ICT competence of all four must
match at least that of relevant agents of change and their strategic horizons.
>>> Research Considerations:
- “Research” as “innovation producers” is often irrelevant to current farming
realities and end user needs. Innovative responses to current demand may be
a tactical success while essential strategic innovation potential and concerns
are ignored;
- The innovation adoption is not necessarily a priority. As a result research
is often not part of a team effort with end users and intermediaries. The
cost is diminished adoption success. In extreme - innovations and innovative
programs overstep into non decision making dimensions;
- Research priorities must ensure that innovation adoption requirements be
compatible with available sectorial infrastructure (labs, broadband, input
supply logistics, extension, etc) and end user proficiencies;
- Research projects which in many cases are funded with public priorities
in mind should significantly focus on public benefit and potential sustainable
viability.
>>> Extension and intermediary considerations:
- There is an imperative need for preferably neutral intermediaries to alleviate
adoption constraints e.g. old, irrelevant data redundancy;
- Innovative interaction methodology to include innovative incentives, adoption
models based on end user choice of priorities and end user involvement are
major adoption constraint-alleviation success factors. To this should be added
the recently available open source software.
>>> Farmer considerations:
- Innovations must be tailored to specific farm/regional characteristics:
size, product, farmer proficiencies and solution feasibility;
- Farmer participation in the initial design stages of innovation initiation
is a critical success factor.
- Farmer to farmer interaction, collaboration and competition can offset innovation
adoption constraints. Within these innovators, agents of change and intermediaries
are critical adoption success factors;
- “Doing the same” more efficiently (incorporating the innovation into existing
practice) is often as productive as an “innovation” - conditional on farmer
confidence in the innovation’s consistent “performance” and back- up service
reliability;
- Farmers are willing to invest in (innovative) technology conditional on
a positive benefit/cost ratio and their individual proficiencies;
>>> Service provider considerations:
- Ensure compatibilities of standardized definitions, updates including those
initiated and or adopted by end users and agreed priorities;
- Man-machine-interface (MMI) remains a dominant ICT adoption impediment needing
unique attention - hopefully with end user involvement;
- Balance farmer priorities with tendencies to promote Killer applications
and company-specific “add-ons”. A “Top Down” imposition of available innovations
(as opposed to satisfaction of ”Bottom Up” demand) is a long term strategic
innovation adoption constraint. The importance of innovation reliability in
this context cannot be overemphasized;
- Innovation features must be compatible with overall supporting infrastructure
(including labs, broadband, input supply logistics, built-in trouble shooting,
etc).
*Comments will be welcomed by <gelb(a)agri.huji.ac.il>, <hermann(a)auernhammer.de> <wagner(a)landw.uni-halle.de>,<
simon(a)unibots.com>
C@R project: documents available
See: http://www.efita.net?d=6700
Golf
This guy staggers into his house, exhausted after playing golf, and drops
his clubs on the floor. "What a day!", he exclaims. His wife asks
what happened. He responds, "Well, there we were on the first tee, when
George had a heart attack and died."
"Oh, how awful."
"Yeh, the whole rest of the day it was: Hit the ball ... drag George
... hit the ball ... drag George. ..."
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