You can also view the message online
EFITA


Châtenay-Malabry (FR - 92290), October, 2020

EFITA newsletter / 953 - European Federation for Information Technology in Agriculture, Food and the Environment


Do not miss the Virus Jokes in English and French

> Coronavirus 4 Coronavirus 3 Coronavirus 2 Ant joke Coronavirus 1

> Virus et autres sujets Virus 6 Virus 5 Virus 4 Virus 3 Virus 2 Virus 1

> Les dernières histoire de l'oncle Paul (Jamet)


The informatique-agricole.org site now offers you the possibility of subscribing the RSS feeds of its two newsletters
See RSS feeds to implement to ensure that you continue to receive this newsletter


To unsubscribe this newsletter, please contact me directely: guy.waksman(a)laposte.net if this link Unsubscribe does not work.

Please note that I changed the presentation of the links that are embedded in the name of the web service.

page facebook

To correspond with me (GW), please use this address: guy.waksman(a)laposte.net


To subscribe the efita newsletter (please ask your friends and colleagues to test this link)
Efita Newsletters subscription


Weekly newsletters about ICT in Agriculture in English and French
Both newsletters have around 14000 subscribers.

>>> Last weekly EFITA Newsletters in English (created in 1999) Efita Newsletters

>>> Last weekly AFIA Newsletters in French (created more than 20 years ago in 1997) Afia Newsletters

>>> Statistics for the last efita newsletter

>>> Last issue of the afia newsletter

>>> Last available satistics for the afia newsletter


An old Greek friend is asking news from me and tells me…

As for Europe, I am against!!! We must take out Germany and Holland and reunite Europe without them! We may invite the British again. Then we will tell them, let us compete. My argument: “Who is getting most advantages of the Union”.

I answered to my friend:

As far as EU is concerned, I respect your point of view, but I cannot share it because for me, after two WW of whose France and Germany had to share the responsibilities (together with UK, Russia and Austria), I am convinced that we owe to the EU (and NATO) 75 years of peace in Europe.

Nothing is more precious than this French-German alliance for me, being an old man of Jewish origin. Three of my grandparents disappeared in Auschwitz.

I understand that the situation of Greece is different than the French one. You suffered from a terrible civil war and from a dictature. You also suffered from numerous weaknesses of your economy and of your State administration system. But I am confident that you will overcome your difficulties.

A remark : The French people are always unhappy and always pessimistic about the future of our dear country, but if we ask them if they are happy personally, a vast majority answers that yes, they are happy.

Like you I hope that UK will join again our EU in a near future.
See oecdbetterlifeindex.org

>
Good old days (?????): Les femmes à la moisson à Auvers-sur-Oise par Charles Sprague-Pearce (1851-1914 - US)



 


Samson SlurryLab: slurry analysis using MRI technology

According to the Danish slurry technology manufacturer Samson Agro and the Danish sensor specialist NanoNord, MRI scanner technology is better suited for mobile slurry analysis than NIR sensors.
See futurefarming.com


Wanted: Field robots: Got a robot for 2021? Show us and we’ll showcase yours!

Future Farming is creating an overview of field and harvest robots that growers can purchase or lease in 2021. Can you help us complete our list?
See futurefarming.com


Good old days (?????): Á travers les champs, c. 1884, par Charles Sprague-Pearce

 

 

 


How did we the future yesterday??

See the incredible collection developed by Alain Fraval


Archives of our newsletters in French and English
Voir Afia
Voir Efita

 

Spraying robots: AutoWeed develops spraying robot for sugarcane farms

Australian AutoWeed's spraying robot could reduce herbicide usage on sugarcane farms by up to 80%.
See futurefarming.com


Grain storage: AGCO focuses on developing grain storage tech with GrainViz

AGCO recently acquired Firm 151 Research, in order to create new grain storage technology solutions.
See futurefarming.com


Good old days (?????): Les faucheurs par René Seyssaud

   


Greenhouses: Blue Radix automises greenhouse management with AI

Blue Radix is making AI-based autonomous greenhouse management available to the greenhouse sector.
See futurefarming.com


Vineyard robots: Naio Technologies launches new version of Ted vineyard robot

Naio’s vineyard robot Ted is now equipped with a tool-holder in the middle and its engine power increased.
See futurefarming.com


Good old days (?????): La chevrière par René Seyssaud (c. 1945)

   

Satellite technology: Russian scientists developing space "vision" for agriculture

Space technology to increase efficiency of crop cultivation and increase crop yields.
See futurefarming.com



The rise of the reused machines: Germany’s E-Farm raises $5.3m Series A, in AFN, by Richard Martyn-Hemphill

The ‘circular economy’ trend has reached industries as seemingly far apart as food and fashion.

Could agricultural equipment be next?

The global market for farm machinery exceeded $100 billion in 2019, according to the German Mechanical Engineering Industry Association. Typically, however, secondhand models get sold through an opaque hodgepodge of informal regional listings, leading to limited price or quality transparency and strong market inefficiencies.
See agfundernews.com


Pay with your palm: Amazon launches new tech for brick-and-mortar retailers, in Fortune, by Phil Wahba
See fortune.com


Good old days (?????): Moisson à Villes sur Auzon (c. 1898) par René Seyssaud

   

Turkish delight as Tarfin raises $5m Series A for its smallholder lending app, by Richard Martyn-Hemphill

Tarfin, an Istanbul-based provider of agricultural inputs to farmers with extended payment terms, has completed a $5 million Series A investment round.

Led by Quona Capital, a venture firm focused on fintech in emerging markets, the round also saw participation from Elevator Ventures (the VC arm of Raiffeisen Bank International), Syngenta Ventures, and Tarfin’s seed investors Collective Spark Fund and Wamda. Tarfin says it will use the new funds to further enhance its data analytics tech and mobile app with the aim of reaching more farmers in Turkey and nearby geographies.
…/…
See agfundernews.com



Good old days (?????): L'effort par René Seyssaud (1867-1952)

   

French plan for improving science communication stirs up controversy, by Elisabeth Pain

.../...
Virginie Tournay, an innovation sociologist at SciencePo Paris and member of ASIF’s sponsoring committee, has long advocated for the creation of a “trusted third party” to fight misinformation on socially sensitive topics like biotechnology. But she does not know how the government came to include the provision for the new science and media initiative. Her proposal to coordinate science communication efforts is closer to the latest language in the bill than an SMC. But whatever initiative is put in place to reduce the gap between scientific consensus and public opinion, it “can only work in partnership with science journalists,” she says. “It would be a mistake to launch something that they consider to be a form of control or interference with their professional freedom.”
See sciencemag.org


Good old days (?????): Moisson en montagne, par René Seyssaud (1900)

   

With foreign tourists gone, Balinese rediscover seaweed farming, in Reuters, by Nyimas Laula & Sultan Anshori
.../...
I Putu Astawa, head of the Bali Tourism Board, said visitors were still needed because “agriculture alone could not get Bali’s economy back to normal”.
But some locals, like teacher and seaweed farmer Wayan Ujiana, 51, are taking the pandemic as a lesson not to depend too much on tourism: “Don’t forget to diversify your income, so when problems happen we do not collapse.”
See uk.reuters.com

 
The Efita newsletter is sponsored by:
page facebook

UK hospitals already using Trump antibody drug, says expert (it is not hydroxychloroquine!)

Oxford University professor says experimental treatment is promising and ‘very potent’.

Prof Peter Horby, who is part of Oxford University’s national Recovery trial, which aims to identify potential treatments for Covid-19, said “about three hospitals in the north” began using the drug last weekend. He said the drug was due to be rolled out to another 30 to 40 UK hospitals next week.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that the drug, REGN-COV2, was “very promising” and “very potent”.

“The class of drugs, these artificial antibodies, have been around for quite a while now, and they’ve been extensively used in inflammatory conditions and cancers, and they’re pretty safe and well understood, and so the technology is something that I think we have confidence in,” Horby said.

“This particular drug has probably been given to, I would think now, four or five hundred patients, mild or severe patients in different trials, and so far there’s been no worrying safety signals.

“In the laboratory, in cell cultures, it has a very strong effect against the virus, and there have been studies in artificial animals where it also shows benefits. So probably of the drugs that are available, it’s one of the most promising.”

Horby said a single dose of the treatment provided prolonged protection for a month to six weeks, making it “quite attractive for the older population”.
See theguardian.com


Where Trump went (and who he was with) leading up to his coronavirus diagnosis

Trump announced Friday he tested positive for the coronavirus. He spent much of the last week traveling and surrounded by people.
See politico.com

   

Good old days (?????): Paysan avec serpe par Vincent van Gogh (1885)

   

Pandemic crisis: Global economic recovery tracker
See FT


Russia is spreading lies about Covid vaccines, says UK military chief

Head of armed forces says both China and Russia trying to undermine cohesion in west.
.../...
Russia is seeking to destabilise countries around the world by sowing disinformation about coronavirus vaccines that is shared rapidly across social media, the head of the armed forces has warned.

Gen Sir Nick Carter, the chief of defence staff, said the propaganda tactic reflected a strategy of “political warfare” aggressively undertaken by Beijing as well as Moscow “designed to undermine cohesion” across the west.
.../...
In July, a fake press release was posted to websites of the pro-Russian self-declared state in Luhansk, eastern Ukraine. It falsely claimed that the US had conducted vaccine trials on Ukrainian volunteers, some of whom had died.

The trials never happened but the misleading narrative spread in several languages, including on a prominent Australian anti-vaccination Facebook group, despite multiple attempts to fact-check and debunk it.

Carter said it was an example of “digital authoritarianism” alongside well-known Kremlin cyber and hacking attacks, in a rare policy speech delivered with the defence secretary, Ben Wallace, sitting alongside him.

A similar approach was adopted by China, he added, where “the Chinese Communist party is forging a future of mass surveillance” and ranking and monitoring of individuals based on how they behave online.

The speech comes in the run-up to a five-year integrated review of defence and foreign policy that is expected to see the UK seek to invest more heavily in cyber and covert capabilities, reflecting a belief that Britain is already engaged in a persistent low-level conflict with authoritarian rivals.
…/…
See theguardian.com


Pesticide hypocrisy? EU edges toward banning glyphosate after finding it safe but clears organic copper sulfate after finding it a ‘public health and environment concern’, by Andrew Porterfield
See geneticliteracyproject.org


A swarm of activists, by James Njoroge

The bottom line is that if Kenya — and other African countries – give-in to the demands of EU anti-technology campaigners, it will lose control of its agriculture and economic future. Just consider how complying with EU pesticide standards would’ve crippled efforts to control ravenous, crop-destroying locust swarms. Low yield European agriculture is no path for Kenya or Africa to build real food sustainability, security or wealth. Without access to modern farming technologies – pesticides, GMOs, gene-edited crops and more — Africa’s famers will continue struggling to feed themselves. Allowing the EU to control the destiny of Africa’s agriculture could, in the end, be the most destructive plague of all.
See europeanscientist.com


Good old days (?????): Le semeur par Vincent van Gogh (1882)

   


The Economist Essentials: Public Debt

The covid-19 pandemic is set to increase public debt to levels last seen after the second world war. But is rising public debt a cause for concern? New economic thinking suggests perhaps not, at least for now.
See The Economist


Statistics, lies and the virus: Tim Harford’s five lessons from a pandemic

In an age of disinformation, the value of rigorous data has never been more evident
See ft.com


Anders Tegnell and the Swedish Covid experiment

The controversial epidemiologist believes lockdown is ‘using a hammer to kill a fly’. Could he be proved right?
See ft.com

 

The cat and the dogs

A Doberman, a Golden Retriever and a cat died and met God. God said to them, “Tell me why I should let you into heaven.”

The Doberman said, “I’ll protect you with my life.”

God said, “You can sit at my right side.”

The Golden Retriever said, “I will fetch your slippers and anything else you ask me to.”

God said, “Then you can sit at my left side.”

Finally, God looked at the cat and said, “And what will you do?”

The cat said, “Excuse me. I think you’re sitting in my seat.”


Good old days (?????): Paysage d'Ouessant : La récolte des pommes de terre par René T. Eschapasse (1905-1957)

   

The distribution of this efita newsletter is sponsored by vitisphere.com

Please, contribute to the content of your efita newsletter, and advertise your events, new publications, new products and new project in this newsletter. Without your support, it will not survive!
Contact: Guy WAKSMAN
E-mail: guy.waksman(a)laposte.net


To read this newsletter on our web site
See Afia


The archives of this newsletter

See Afia


About the EFITA mailing list

You can use the efita moderated list (> 15000 subscribers) to announce any event / product / web site / joke (!) related to IT in agriculture, environment, food industry and rural areas.
If you want to subscribe a friend, please fill in his form.
If you do not wish to receive our messages, please fill in the following form...