Paris,
6 September 2010
EFITA newsletter / 477 - European Federation for Information Technology in
Agriculture, Food and the Environment
A thought for today
In all life one should comfort the afflicted, but verily, also, one should
afflict the comfortable, and especially when they are comfortably, contentedly,
even happily wrong - John Kenneth GALBRAITH, economist (1908-2006)
See: http://wordsmith.org/awad/archives.html
PotatoEurope 2010 with 186 exhibitors from 16 countries
8 - 9 September 2010 - HANOVER
Open air exhibition "all about the potato” with trial plots, machinery
demonstrations and discussion forums on. More.
Third European Workshop "Innovations for Water Management: Competence
Models, e-Learning and Social Communities"
22 September 2010 - BUCAREST
The third European Workshop will take place on the 22nd of September, 2010
in Bucarest. The organiser, the EU research project WACOM, invites all experts
from the water sector as well as human resources development, e-Learning and
online education to Romania.
See: http://www.wacom-project.eu
Contacts: Maria CHEVERESAN, Christian M. STRACKE
Emails: maria.alexandrescu(a)utcb.ro, Christian.Stracke(a)icb.uni-due.de
Reshaping Europe: Addressing Societal Challenges trough Entrepreneurship
and Innovation
27 – 29 October 2010 – LIEGE (BE)
See: http://www.europe-innova.eu/liege2010
Common conference on "ICT- technologies, equipment and know-how for
integrated and sustainable land- and farm-management"
16 - 18 November 2010 - Entebbe / Uganda
To realize a green revolution for Africa, experts mentioned the importance
of TECHNOLOGY; further the must of more INTEGRATION and COOPERATION and better
PLANNING together with increased ADVISORY SERVICES for a successful uptake.
A group of European companies, highly dedicated to boost agricultural development,
brought all these elements together and will introduce an integrated model
for land-, farm- and forest management mid of November in Entebbe/Uganda.
Integrated stands for technology cooperation, for farmers integration into
cooperative tasks, for horizontal and vertical
sector integration, the integration of advisory support and for the integration
of financing institutes and insurance companies, which became possible with
the help of sophisticated technology.
If you are farmer, belonging to a farm advisory group, or buyer of farm products,
seller of machines, crops or chemicals to farmers, or if you are consultant,
or forester, or working in the agro-finance sector (e.g. Micro-financing)
or in the agro-insurance business, if you are working locally or if you are
interested in business throughout regions or whole Africa, if you are researcher,
NGO´s, expert, project developer, IT- or communication expert who wants to
raise new business or if you are a governmental expert, or working with a
chamber, for all of you it is a must to take part at this event - you will
benefit, personally and for the farm, company or group you’re representing.
At this conference, you will hear practical examples how advisors can support
farmers (small holder farmers likewise large enterprises) in optimizing their
farm-management by better planning and control, by exact calculation of their
business, optimization of fertilizer, pesticide and water use, by cooperative
use of machines and by increasing sales due to traceability and quality certification.
The organizing companies are representing the following technologies:
> MICROSOFT: New images with 50cm resolution for agricultural- and with1m
resolution for forest areas as basic planning element, provided for single
countries or even for whole Africa!
> PROGIS: ICT technologies for farm- and forest management, advisory services,
cooperative management, logistics, precision farming, forest inventory and
land consolidation, provided for single farms, advisors handling several hundred
farms, or cooperative groups of farms.
> ADCON: Weather stations and soil moisture sensors with expert models
for reducing water or pesticide use provided as single stations or country-wide
networks integrated into ICT Technology!
> WABAG: Experts in water management also for rural areas
> forCERT: Consulting experts with a special focus in forestry, resource
management and fighting against desertification
See: http://www.progis.com/events/uganda2010/index.html
Contact : Walter MAYER
E-mail: strobl(a)progis.com
A good way to spend nice holydays in France
See: http://www.belambra.co.uk/belambra/Default.aspx?tabid=55
Epsilon: Search full text documents published at SLU. (Sweden)
See: http://epsilon.slu.se/eindex.html
Organic.Edunet Web portal available in more languages
The new version of the Organic.Edunet Web Portal (http://www.organic-edunet.eu) is released.
This new version features new exciting search mechanisms and new languages,
rising the total number of portal languages to thirteen (13)!
The Organic.Edunet Web portal may be used to find:
- Academic articles on organic agriculture & agroecology
- School resources that can be used for teaching environmental topics
- Educational scenarios to deploy within the classroom
- Multimedia content (e.g. photos & videos) on the aforementioned topics
We cordially invite you to visit the Organic.Edunet Web Portal and find resources
of interest/relevance to your work at: http://www.organic-edunet.eu
We also kindly ask you to take 5 minutes of your time to let us know how it
looked to you by completing this short online questionnaire: http://www.ieru.org/organicsurvey/
The Portal has been developed in the context of the Organic.Edunet project
(http://project.organic-edunet.eu)
that is funded by the European Commission's eContentPlus programme.
Contact: Nikos MANOUSELIS, Nikos PALAVITSINIS
Mail: info-organic(a)grnet.gr
ICT Update issue 56, August 2010: Irrigation
Figures from the FAO show that irrigation can increase crop yields by
up to 400%. Developing a reliable system to water the land all year round
gives farmers the chance to plant crops in the dry season, and grow high-value
crops to increase profits and recoup investment costs. But with only a small
percentage of available farmland being irrigated in ACP countries, ICTs are
now becoming crucial to the promotion, development and maintenance of new
irrigation systems.
>>> In this issue…
> ‘The most important thing is to design systems – both irrigation and
information systems – that are best suited to the environment and the people
who will use them.’ Maimbo Mabanga Malesu, programme coordinator at the World
Agroforestry Centre.
See: http://ictupdate.cta.int/en/regulars/perspectives/(issue)/56
> ‘Irrigation can greatly improve yields and guarantee crops. Farmers don’t
need to worry if there will be enough rainfall; they know their crops will
get enough water. It provides a kind of reassurance.’ Stanley Rampair, chief
executive officer of Jamaica’s National Irrigation Commission Limited.
See: http://ictupdate.cta.int/en/regulars/Q-A/(issue)/56
>>> Articles
Managers of the Office du Niger irrigation scheme in Mali are using remote
sensing data to analyse the efficiency of the system without having to physically
check the infrastructure. The information will help them prepare for future
expansion.
See: http://ictupdate.cta.int/en/Feature-Articles/Remote-control
> Irrisat-SMS combines satellite data, information from local weather stations
and feedback from farmers to deliver daily, detailed irrigation scheduling
advice via SMS.
See: http://ictupdate.cta.int/en/Feature-Articles/A-balanced-delivery
> Tanzania’s Ministry of Water and Irrigation has developed an ICT strategy,
which includes using GIS, radio and cell phones, to deliver irrigation and
water services.
See: http://ictupdate.cta.int/en/Feature-Articles/A-plan-for-the-future
> A project in Swaziland uses remote sensing and GIS to identify irrigable
farmland. The data are analysed to improve the efficiency of project management
processes.
See: http://ictupdate.cta.int/en/Feature-Articles/Water-soil-and-data
> There are a wide range of resources available on the web to help agricultural
extension services, NGOs and cooperatives develop and maintain irrigation
schemes for small-scale farmers.
See: http://ictupdate.cta.int/en/regulars/techtip/(issue)/56
ICT Update (http://ictupdate.cta.int)
is a bimonthly printed bulletin, web magazine, and accompanying email newsletter
focusing on the use of information and communication technologies in agriculture
in African, Caribbean and Pacific countries. It is published in English and
French, by CTA (Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation) in
Wageningen in the Netherlands.
Jewish proverb
"In God we trust
the others pay cash!"
The Drunk and the "Ballerina"
A fat woman, wearing a sleeveless sun dress, walked into a bar in Dublin.
She raised her right arm, revealing a hairy armpit, and pointing to all the
people sitting at the bar, asked, 'What man here will buy a lady a drink?'
The bar went silent as the patrons tried to ignore her.
But down at the end of the bar, a bleary-eyed drunk slammed his hand down
on the counter and bellowed 'Give the ballerina a drink!'
The bartender poured the drink and the woman chugged it down.
She turned to the patrons and again revealing the same hairy armpit, asked,
'What man here will buy a lady a drink?'
Once again, the same drunk slapped his money down on the bar and said, 'Give
the ballerina another drink!'
The bartender approached the drunk and said 'Tell me, Paddy, it's your business
if you want to buy the lady a drink, but why do you keep calling her a ballerina?'
The drunk replied, 'Any woman who can lift her leg that high has got to be
a ballerina!'
Contact: Mick HARKIN
E-mail: harkin(a)iol.ie
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