OR society Special Interest Group proposal
Title: Agriculture and natural resources
 Scope: We aim to encapsulate the management of all of the biotic primary production industries (agriculture, forestry, fisheries, etc) and their underpinning natural resources (soils, water, ecosystems, etc), at policy, strategic and tactical levels.  This definition includes the production of goods and [ecosystem] services as well as their related chains or webs of secondary industries and logistics.  It is application orientated and not restricted to any particular method.  Some of these methods will, of necessity, have been applied in a very innovative manner.
 The governance and management of these industries place this area at the vanguard of operational research’s contribution to sustainability. This Special Interest Group offers a platform for those working on such issues.
 Purpose
Generally, to further the OR Society’s charitable objectives: All activities will be directed towards the furtherance of these objectives, which are:
- the advancement of the knowledge and interest of Operational Research, and
- the advancement of the education of Operational Research.
 Specifically, the aim is to create a fraternity of practitioners and academics within our scope to:
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Encourage the practice of OR
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Publicise the application of OR and thus elevate its profile amongst stakeholders
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Advance the science and application of OR
Activities
As a minimum, we will hold a general meeting every two years.
 2008-2009 Plan for relaunch
The aim of the relaunch phase is to obtain sufficient interest to enable the group to hold at least one half day technical meeting per year.
The proposed chair and secretary are currently working closely with the EURO Working Group on Operational Research in Agriculture and Forest Management (EWG-ORAFM see http://www.orafm.org) to organise to agriculture and natural resources stream at OR50.
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The abstracts of this stream, and future technical meetings, will be published as an abstract of communication in the Journal of Agricultural Science, Cambridge to further promote our activities and their science.
 In part the OR50 conference stream will be a partial relaunch meeting, but given the costs of the conference package it should not be the only meeting. One other relaunch meeting with technical content is planned in the first 12 months. This will double up as a general meeting. It remains to be seen if it can be free to attend because the geographic sparsity of those working in this field it is anticipated that meetings will need to include lunch to justify the travel involved. The anticipated date for this meeting is February 2009
