Châtenay-Malabry (FR -
92290), 20 February 2012
EFITA newsletter / 554 - European Federation for Information Technology
in Agriculture, Food and the Environment
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Contact: Guy WAKSMAN
E-mail: guy.waksman(a)laposte.net
Bill Gates to speak at IFAD in Rome, February 23, 2012
On Thursday, February 23, 2012, Bill Gates will be speaking at IFAD’s Governing
Council meeting in Rome. He will take center stage to share his perspective
on how sustainable agriculture productivity improvements can reduce hunger
and poverty. He will also challenge both global players and national governments
to adopt a new approach to supporting small farmers.
Please join us in sharing the message – here are some easy ways for you
to help:
1. Connect with us: If you are not already, follow the foundation’s @gatesag
and @gatesfoundation for updates on our agriculture work and news you
can share with your networks.
2. Follow Impatient
Optimists: The agriculture section on our foundation blog is a resource
for conversation and updates on our ag work and other issues. Feel free
to reach out if you have an active blog and would be interested in cross-posting.
3. Send us your favorite “agfacts”: In the lead up to the speech, we will
be tweeting agfacts to show the power of investing in agricultural development
from @gatesag. We welcome you to send us your agfacts. Here are a couple
of examples:
> gatesag FACT: #Agriculture provides 70 percent of employment and
30 percent of Sub-Saharan Africa’s gross domestic product.
> gatesag FACT: Developing #agriculture is 2-4 times more effective
at reducing hunger and poverty than any other sector.
4. Promote the live stream: IFAD will be live streaming the event, which
includes Bill’s speech at http://webcasting.ifad.org/gc2012. Bill’s session will be
online on February 23 at:
> Seattle, 1 a.m.
> New York, 4 a.m.
> Rome, 10 a.m.
> Nairobi, 12 noon
> New Delhi, 2:30 p.m.
See: http://www.gatesfoundation.org
Contact: Diane SCOTT
E-Mail: diane.scott(a)gatesfoundation.org
"North America" Workshop: Information on the North American
agricultural market and its unique features
13 March 2012 - FRANKFURT AM MAIN
DLG International, a subsidiary of DLG (Deutsche Landwirtschafts-Gesellschaft
- German Agricultural Society), is inviting all interested to its "North
America" Workshop in Frankfurt am Main on 13 March 2012. The event
will focus on the North American agricultural market.
See: http://www.dlg.org/news_agriculture.html?detail/dlg.org/1/2/5119
Contact: Malene CONLONG
E-Mail: m.conlong(a)dlg.org
An international course on: Agricultural Engineering Technologies
23 October – 15 November - CINADCO's Training Centre, Volcani Agricultural
Complex, Israel
See: http://www.moag.gov.il/agri/English/Ministrys+Units/CINADCO/
Contact: Irit PRIGOJIN
E-mail: veirit(a)volcani.agri.gov.il
French ForumPhyto newsletter
See: http://www.forumphyto.fr/2012/02/14/infoflash-for-english-readers-1201/?lang=fr
Tesco sales slump part of consumer revolution changing the way we shop
See: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/jan/12/tesco-consumer-revolution-internet-shopping
The age of the fortnightly shop is disappearing as more people turn to
mobile devices and internet when buying groceries…
Info provided by Sjaak WOLFERT
E-mail: sjaak.wolfert(a)wur.nl
Whole Chain Traceability: A Successful Research Funding Strategy
See: http://pardalis.squarespace.com/blog/2012/1/26/whole-chain-traceability-a-successful-research-funding-strat.html
The Whole Chain Traceability Consortium
See: http://pardalis.squarespace.com/
blog/2011/11/7/the-whole-chain-traceability-consortium.html
Wirelessinfo / COIN review presentation
See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOh0MAuiwkY
International scientific open access electronic journal: Agris on-line
Papers in Economics and Informatics
The AOL is international, scholarly open access, peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary
and fully refereed scientific journal. The journal covers all areas of
agriculture and rural development (agricultural economics, agribusiness,
agrarian policy, information and communication technology, information
system, e-business, social economy and rural sociology). The Journal is
indexed by SCOPUS and others db (VOA3R, EBSCO, DOAJ, ProQuest, CAB Abstract,
etc.).
See: http://online.agris.cz
Contact : Pavel SIMEK
E-mail: simek(a)pef.czu.cz
The Organic.Balkanet LdV EU project is officially over
See: http://www.organic-balkanet.eu
During the two years of its operation (9/12/2009-9/12/2011), the project
identified the training needs of the users in the countries involved in
the project (Bulgaria, Romania and Slovenia) and based on this feedback,
developed and offered a blended learning based training curriculum aimed
at organic agriculture trainers, advisors and farmers freely available
online through a multilingual course management platform.
See: http://ob.moleportal.eu).
This curriculum is further supported by a set of training scenarios included
in the training curriculum, a training scenarios handbook adapted to fit
the specific needs of the project's users as well as additional resources
from previous initiatives and projects, carefully selected and adapted.
Regarding the training curriculum and content, the following outcomes
of the project should be noted:
1. Organic.Balkanet training curriculum: a set of 26 training units organized
in 8 modules are available to all stakeholders. This material is supported
by additional training material identified and selected by the corresponding
provider of the course. All these are freely available to all stakeholders
through the Organic.Balkanet Course Management Platform
See: http://ob.moleportal.eu
2. Organic.Balkanet Training Scenarios Handbook. A handbook providing
the methodology, implementation and examples of training scenarios has
been developed in order to support the development of new training scenarios
as well as the adaptation of existing ones.
3. Organic.Balkanet Course Management Platform
See: http://ob.moleportal.eu
The multilingual platform is populated with the training curriculum of
the project and is freely accessible by anyone, after a free registration
(in order to avoid misuse by the visitors). It includes the content developed
by the project partners supported by additional related training material,
the handbooks and a number of communication tools.
4. Organic.Balkanet Course Management Platform User Guides: Two guides
for the use of the Organic.Balkanet Course Management Platform were developed,
for trainers and trainees respectively. The guides provide detailed information
about the use of the platform both from the aspect of the course administrator
and from the aspect of the trainee.
The results of the project have been and still are disseminated through
a variety of Web2.0 tools such as:
a. Facebook Group
See: www.facebook.com/groups/organic.balkanet
It was and still is used to disseminate the project and its outcomes to
a younger audience which is using Facebook intensively. The group managed
to have more than 50 members at all times and has been really active and
constantly updated.
b. Flickr photostream
See: www.flickr.com/photos/balkanet
It was used for uploading, storing and presenting photos from all the
project meetings and related events. More than 100 photos have been uploaded
and arranged in sets, according to the event.
c. Twitter
See: https://twitter.com/OrganicBalkanet
It has been used for providing short and instant information about news
and events related to the project. About 40 tweets were circulated to
about 15 followers and then some of them reached an even broader audience.
d. YouTube Channel
See: http://www.youtube.com/user/organicbalkanet
It has been used for sharing videos related to the objectives of the project,
as well as some videos from events related to the project.
e. Online networking community
See: http://voa3r.cc.uah.es/index.php/groups/viewgroup/17-Balkan+Organic+Agriculture+Researchers
An online networking community has been created in order to provide a
virtual space for researchers, practitioners and other stakeholders of
the organic agriculture area of the Balkan countries to discuss, share
and communicate. This community aims to keep the Organic.Balkanet consortium
members and other stakeholders from Balkan countries connected even after
the end of the project.
Contact : Vassilis PROTONOTARIOS
Mél : vprot(a)agroknow.gr
OpenAGRIS and agINFRA presented at AOS 2011 in Bangkok (from the AIMS
newsletter)
The Joint International Symposium on Natural Language Processing and
Agriculture Ontology Service (SNLP-AOS) 2011 [1]is taking place in Bangkok
(Thailand) from the 9th–10th of February, 2012.
This was already the 9th AOS workshop (first one took place in 2001).
The AOS workshops serve as occasions for researchers and practitioners
in the area of semantically-driven information management in agriculture
to meet and exchange experiences.
>>> OpenAGRIS and agINFRA presented at AOS workshop
The AIMS team held two presentations during the Agricultural Ontology
Service (AOS) workshop.
* Johannes Keizer held the presentation entitled: "agINFRA, a multilingual
infrastructure for information on agricultural
Innovation"
* Caterina Caracciolo held for the AGRIS team the presentation entitled:
"OpenAGRIS: using bibliographical data for linking into the agricultural
knowledge web"
See: http://www.snlp.in.th/index.php
See: http://aims.fao.org/aos-workshop
European Soil Portal
See: http://eusoils.jrc.ec.europa.eu
Contact: Panos PANAGOS
E-mail: panos.panagos(a)jrc.ec.europa.eu
Twitter
Did you hear that they had to cancel the big mob scene in the new
Twitter movie?
They were limited to 140 characters.
And another short one
« The Artist », the mute movie captures 10 nominations at the Oscars,
a première for a French movie!
That confirms that when the French keep their traps shut, everyone enjoy
them!!!
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