Paris, 2 August 2010


EFITA newsletter / 472 / European Federation for Information Technology in Agriculture, Food and the Environment


Retirement
I remember that you had plans to retire in summer 2010? What's the status now?
Anyway: it's a good time after working approx. 40 years to retire. You will see: very interesting and happy years are coming.
Send me a private email address - you never know!
Contact: René HUSKEN
E-mail: r.husken(a)geo-t.nl


My answer (GW): You are right. I have some health problem (no big problem!) and I am very tired. I retired on 1 rst July but hope to have the possibilities to maintain some activities.


Seminar “What’s new, what’s next in dynamic system modeling in agronomy”
7 September - PARIS
English seminar organized by the French Network on Modeling Agricultural System
See: http://www.modelia.org
Register soon, places are limited. Preliminary program and inscription:
http://www.modelia.org/moodle/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=53
Contact: François BRUN
E-mail: francois.brun(a)acta.asso.fr


Geo-Information and Information Management for Farms, Agribusiness and Administration
24th – 26th November 2010, BONN (Germany)

The EU-funded projects FutureFarm (www.futurefarm.eu) and agriXchange (www.agrixchange.eu) as well as the CAPIGI-network (www.capigi.eu) organise a joint conference from 24th until 26th November 2010 in Bonn (Germany). This public conference provides a unique opportunity to discuss the emerging ICT and geo-information business in agriculture. Novel solutions, recent discussions and new concepts for managing of production information and geo-information in agriculture and the related value added chain of production will be presented. Plenary sessions feature state of the art insight into relevant aspects of ICT for the agribusiness being presented by internationally renowned keynote speakers. Separate paper sessions, workshops, poster sessions and exhibitions offered by the organising groups address more specific topics covering:
- Farm Management Information Systems
- Designing international standards for information exchange in agribusiness
- Standardisation and Interoperability
- Providing standards through Web Services
- Trends in Geo Information for farmers and administration
- Trends for ICT in agribusiness
- Emerging technologies in Ag-Software
- Emerging technologies in on-farm geo-information applications and software.

About 200 participants are expected from all over the world. The conference brings together industry (software companies, machine manufacturers, system developers) and scientists and governments active in both (geo-)information management and agriculture administration that share interests in the environment.

The key issue of the EU-funded project FutureFarm is to analyse future demands of farms towards their information management. From that it developed a concept for a new Farm Information Management Systems (FMIS) which will help to improve communication, crop management and documentation. Standards from cross compliance, regional regulations or from buyers can automatically be implemented in the FMIS and its application in the daily planning and management of information on farm. Data intensive technologies such as Precision Farming and robotics provide a wealth of information and are specifically considered.
Contact: Armin WERNER
E-mail: armin.werner(a)zalf.de]

The overall objective of the EU-funded project agriXchange is to coordinate and support the setting up of sustainable network for developing a system for common data exchange in agriculture. This will be achieved by (i) establishing a platform on data exchange in agriculture in the EU, (ii) developing a reference framework for interoperability of data exchange, (iii) identifying the main challenges for harmonizing data exchange.
Contact: Sjaak WOLFERT
E-mail: sjaak.wolfert(a)wur.nl

The CAPIGI-network brings together governments, industry and research to discuss the impact of geo-information in implementing agricultural politics. During this joint conference CAPIGI presents a workshop about the enabling role of geo-information (satellite data, soil sampling, crop monitoring, machine guidance, variable rate applications et cetera) in information management, both on-farm and in information chains. This CAPIGI workshop will present a state-of-the-art overview on innovations and research in geo-information sciences. These emerging technologies get illustrated with practice experiences and benefits in agricultural policy implementation.
Contact: Roosmarijn HARING
E-mail: roosmarijn.haring(a)aerovision.nl]
See: http://www.futurefarm.eu
See: http://www.agrixchange.eu
See: http://www.capigi.eu


Evidence-Based Agricultural and Rural Policy Making: Methodological and Empirical Challenges of Policy Evaluation
17 - 18 February 2011 - ANCONA
See: http://eaae-seminar.univpm.it/content/home


The 9th New Ag International conference & exhibition
15-17 March 2011 - CAIRO, Egypt
After having visited Spain, Italy, Turkey, Mexico, Hungary, India and the USA, the now established event on the agenda of the industry will be for the first time in this region, one where current and future growth of the market for High Tech Ag inputs is the largest.
As usual, hundreds of delegates from around the world and in particular from North Africa, the Middle East and Asia will gather in Cairo.

> The registration at 'early bird' rate will start Sept 1st, 2010
The Exhibition floor plan will be available in October but stand pre-reservations and inquiries about sponsorship opportunities can also be made by emailing Andrew Osborne at: newag(a)newaginternational.com as from now.
Some prestigious companies have already signed for main sponsorship: SQM (Chile),Tradecorp (Spain), Valagro (Italy) and Yara (Norway).
The event is officially supported by the Arab Fertilizer Association (AFA)

> Call for papers
Please make sure you submit your abstract latest by October 30th, 2010. In the meantime we are pleased to confirm that the following outstanding speakers will give keynote addresses in the opening conference session:
- Dr Prem Warrior, Senior Programme Officer, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will speak about “The Need for Innovation in crop management inputs and technologies”.
- Dr Nigel Garbutt, Managing Director or the Global GAP organization will speak about “The Harmonising of Good Agricultural Practice (G.A.P.) world-wide, challenges and opportunities for the suppliers of Agricultural inputs".
See:http://www.newaginternational.com/


Avano…
…offers an access to 221641 electronic resources about the marine and aquatic sciences (aquaculture and fisheries for instance, but also geosciences, biology, ecology...).
These ressources available in Avano come from the OAI harvesting of 287 Open Archives and 2 commercial editors (How does it work?).
This project is part of the Open Access international movement, which aims at making scientific documentation accessible to a broad public through free publishing on the Web.
See: http://www.ifremer.fr/avano/


Organic edunet
Organic.Edunet aims to facilitate access, usage and exploitation of digital educational content related to Organic Agriculture (OA) and Agroecology (AE).
See: http://www.organic-edunet.eu/organic/index.html
See: http://portal.organicedunet.eu/


Organic eprint
Organic Eprints is an international open access archive for papers related to research in organic agriculture. The archive contains full-text papers in electronic form together with bibliographic information, abstracts and other metadata
See: http://www.orgprints.org/


International Centre for Research in Organic Food System
The ICROFS was founded in 2008. The centre is an expansion of the former Danish Agricultural Research Centre for Organic Farming (DARCOF), which the Danish Government decided to provide with an international mandate and an international board.
See: http://www.icrofs.org/


Conversion
Un cura, un pastor pentecostal y un rabino estaban a cargo de sus respectivos templos en una universidad del norte de Michigan. Dos o tres veces a la semana, se reunían a tomar un café y charlar un rato. Un día, uno de ellos hizo un comentario diciendo que predicarle a la gente no era tan difícil, que un verdadero desafío sería convertir a un oso. Una cosa llevó a la otra, y decidieron hacer el experimento. Cada uno se adentraría en el bosque, buscaría un oso, le predicaría y trataría de convertirlo a su respectiva fe. Una semana más tarde se reunieron a comparar los resultados. El padre Flannery, con su brazo en cabestrillo, varios vendajes en todo el cuerpo y apoyado en muletas, fue el primero:

- Bueno, entré al bosque buscando al oso. Cuando lo encontré, comencé a leerle el catecismo. El oso no quería saber nada al respecto y comenzó a pegarme con sus enormes brazos. Así que rápidamente tomé mi agua bendita, lo salpiqué con ella y por Dios y la Santísima Virgen les juro que se puso manso como un corderito. El obispo vendrá la próxima semana a darle su primera comunión y su confirmación.

El reverendo Billy Bob habló después. Estaba en silla de ruedas, tenía un brazo y ambas piernas enyesadas y tenía suero conectado al otro brazo. En su encendida oratoria relató:

- Bueno, hermanos, ¡ustedes saben que nosotros no salpicamos a la gente! Cuando encontré al oso, comencé a leerle la palabra sagrada del Señor. Pero este oso no quería saber nada conmigo. Así que lo agarré del brazo y comenzamos a luchar. Rodamos colina abajo, luego seguimos luchando mientras subíamos otra colina y volvimos a rodar hacia abajo hasta terminar en un arroyo. Entonces rápidamente hundí su cabeza en el agua y bauticé su peluda alma. Y exactamente como te pasó a tí -añadió mirando al cura- se volvió manso como un cordero y pasamos el día alabando a Jesús.

El cura y el reverendo miraron al rabino, que yacía en una cama de hospital. Tenía yeso por todo el cuerpo, varios suministros de remedios, sangre por vía endovenosa y monitores que verificaban constantemente su estado. Estaba realmente mal cuando los miró y les dijo:

- Mirándolo en retrospectiva, creo que la circuncisión no era la mejor manera de intentar convertirlo.


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