• Growth and yield models

Instructions for authors can be found at:

http://www.springer.com/business/operations+research/journal/10479

Authors should submit a cover letter and a manuscript by date

via the Journal’s online submission site. Manuscripts submitted after the deadline may not be considered for the special volume and may be transferred to a regular volume.

Please see Author Instructions on the site if you have not yet submitted a paper through

this web-based system. Be sure to note in the Manuscript Comment text that your work

is intended for the special volume and to select the article type “xxx.”

Papers will be subject to a strict review process managed by the Guest Editors and accepted papers will be published online individually, before print publication.

The oldest and most common dig against organic agriculture is that it cannot feed the world’s citizens; this, however, is a supposition, not a fact. And industrial agriculture isn’t working perfectly, either: the global food price index is at a record high, and our agricultural system is wreaking havoc with the health not only of humans but of the earth. There are around a billion undernourished people; we can also thank the current system for the billion who are overweight or obese.

via Huh. Sustainable Farming Can Feed the World? - NYTimes.com.

Nitrogen pollution from farms, vehicles, industry and waste treatment is costing the EU up to £280bn 320bn euros a year, a report says.

The study by 200 European experts says reactive nitrogen contributes to air pollution, fuels climate change and is estimated to shorten the life of the average resident by six months.

Livestock farming is one of the biggest causes of nitrogen pollution, it adds

via BBC News - Nitrogen pollution costs EU up to £280bn a year.

Food: Six Things to Feel Good About

By MARK BITTMAN

Mark Bittman on food and all things related.

Tags:

farming, food safety, school lunches, urban agriculture

The great American writer, thinker and farmer Wendell Berry recently said, “You can’t be a critic by simply being a griper . . . One has also to . . . search out the examples of good work.”

I’ve griped for weeks, and no doubt I’ll get back to it, but there are bright spots on our food landscape, hopeful trends, even movements, of which we can be proud. Here are six examples.

1)  Not just awareness, but power | Everyone talks about food policy, but as advocates of change become more politically potent we’re finally seeing more done about it.

2) Moving beyond greenwashing | Michelle Obama’s recent alliance with Wal-Mart made even more headlines than the retailer’s plan to re-regionalize its food distribution network, which is if anything more significant.

3) Real food is spreading | There are now more than 6,000 farmers markets nationwide — about a 250 percent increase since 1994 (significant: there are half as many as there are domestic McDonald’s), and 900 of them are open during the winter.

4) We’re not just buying, we’re growing | Urban agriculture is on the rise. If you’re smirking, let me remind you that in 1943, 20 million households (three-fifths of the population at that point) grew more than 40 percent of all the vegetables we ate.

5)  Farming is becoming hip | The number of farms is at last increasing, although it’s no secret that farmers are an endangered species: the average age of the principal operator on farms in the United States is 57.

6)  The edible school lunch | The school lunch may have more potential positive influences than anything else, and we’re beginning to see it realized.

via Some Good News About Food - NYTimes.com.

Membership to the Mailing List esi2009@orafm.org

On this web page you can subscribe to, or unsubscribe from, the mailing list esi2009@orafm.org.

Special Interest Group (SIG)
Agriculture and Natural Resources
One day meeting

Making better decisions for the management or governance of the agricultural and natural resource industries

Frank Parkinson Room, University of Reading,
2nd April 2009

10:30 Coffee and Registration
11:00 Introduction
11:15 Katie Stephen (SAC, Edinburgh) Life cycle assessment of environmental impacts of UK pig production systems
11:40 Marco Pautasso (Imperial, Ascot) Network models for the spread of plant disease in trade pathways
12:05 Andreas Brieden (Universität der Bundeswehr München, Germany) Land consolidation by means of Integer Linear Programming.
12:30 Jan Zazgornik (University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences, Austria) Vehicle Routing and Container Scheduling in Timber Transport
12:55 Lunch
14:00 Nonophile Nkambule (Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, South Africa) An ecological-economic analysis of biodiesel feedstock production from smallholdings in rural South Africa
14:25 Maury E. Bredahl (University of Guelph Canada) Developing Managerial Decision Aids from Efficiency Analysis
14:50 Sam Wong (University of Leeds) Gendering Public Participation in Trans-boundary Water Governance – What can we Learn from the Volta River Basin in West Africa
15:15 Discussion and SIG meeting: 5 minute speeding dating introductions of practioners and their interests.
15:55 Summary & concluding remarks
16:00 Tea & departure
The OR Society: http://www.theorsociety.com/
SIG Chairman: Professor Tahir Rehman, University of Reading, T.U.Rehman@reading.ac.uk
SIG Secretary: Daniel Sandars, Cranfield University, daniel.sandars@cranfield.ac.uk

the Association of Applied Biologists

To be held at SAC, Edinburgh, UK
2-4 June 2009

The aim of this conference is to explore and identify effective methodologies, modelling and measuring techniques to analyse integrated systems. These systems are, by their very nature, complex and many interacting factors determine their development. It is now widely recognised across the scientific community and policymakers that issues such as climate change, biofuels and food security, impacts of agriculture on the environment, animal health and welfare, and agricultural policy and regulations are best addressed through an integrated systems approach. This timely and topical conference is being organised jointly by the Association of Applied Biologists, the British Society for Animal Science and the Agricultural Economics Society to discuss this rapidly developing area and share insights into how problems can be resolved. Conference participants will consider how recent research can enhance our understanding of how changes in the biophysical, economic and social environment are likely to impact on agricultural production and ecosystem services, and the wider implications for society.

The conference will consist of keynote addresses, offered papers and poster presentations and workshops that will focus on exploring the way forward.

The key themes for the conference are:

• Tools of the trade, for example integration of biophysical and economic modelling, investigation of scale, linking static and dynamic models, sensitivity and uncertainty analysis, data collection and availability, quality assurance.

• Lessons to be learnt, for example, case studies, building blocks of the system, linkages, application of models.

• The way forward, for example identification of strengths and weaknesses, deciding when integrated methodologies are appropriate.

Papers and posters from the conference will be reproduced in a volume of Aspects of Applied Biology, which will be available to delegates at the conference. Full papers will be encouraged to be submitted for publication in Annals of Applied Biology. Please send your offer to the AAB office (Email to anna@aab.org.uk; Fax +44 (0)1789 470234). Alternatively, you can submit an offer online, giving the title of the paper, authors, affiliations and a short synopsis of your paper. Click on ABSTRACTS in the left hand column, then click on the conference title. You can register your email and, after being sent a password, can upload your offer. Please indicate whether your offer is for a platform presentation or a poster.

The Operational Research Society

Special Interest Group on Agriculture and Natural Resources Call for Abstracts

Frank Parkinson Room, University of Reading, 2nd April 2009

Making better decisions for the management or governance of the agricultural and related natural resource industries

We invite contributions to this meeting of broadly relevant works.

There is no restriction on techniques or class of problem solved, but the work will be of an applied nature, and that may involve a considerably innovative approach.

To raise the profile of these contributions, abstracts they will be published in the Journal of Agricultural Science, subject to editorial review. They must be of completed or near completed work and prepared in the correct style (see Journal of Agricultural Science, Cambridge generally, but a similar preprint of proceedings is available http://hdl.handle.net/1826/2471). An abstract should be 350- 400 words of text and may, in addition, contain some equations, and at least one reference, for example to a more detailed presentation of the author’s work. Microsoft Word is preferred.

Those wishing to contribute should send an abstract to:
D L Sandars (Agriculture and Natural Resources’ Meeting) Natural Resources Management Centre, Building 42a, School of Applied Science, Cranfield University Cranfield, Bedfordshire, MK43 0AL

E-mail: daniel.sandars@cranfield.ac.uk

Fax: +44 (0) 1234 752971

by Monday, 2nd March 2009.

Each talk will be of 15 minutes duration, followed by 5 minutes discussion. We will endeavour to select a balanced programme of contributions from those offered. This event is timed to exploiting synergies with the Agricultural Research Modeller’s meeting in London (contact Les Crompton, University of Reading, l.a.crompton@reading.ac.uk) the following day. If you have to travel a distance why not stay a night and do both?

Depending on numbers we may recommend that the talks form part of the latter event in London rather than the proposed standalone event in Reading.

T. U. Rehman & D. L. Sandars; 9th September 2008

I recently had call to put forward my views on interdisciplinarity and OR. My current funding comes from a programme that aims to create an interdisciplinary synthesis between natural and social scientists to solve problems relating to sustainable rural development.

I am now increasingly of the view that social scientists are arrogant, natural scientists are ignorant, and both need bombing out of their ivory towers if interdisciplinarity is to have a chance. To understand why see http://www.relu.ac.uk/research/Discussions%20on%20interdisciplinarity.html and the article on Operational Research.

I’d be interested if anyone else has formed opinions one way or another. It would be instructive to share them. email daniel

Recently I discovered that one OR professional did become an interdisciplinarian. He was Baron Solly Zuckerman, a South African, the chief scientific advisor to the British Government (1964 to 1971). One thing he did was to challenge the efficacy of monodisciplinary academia to serve policy. He is credited with introducing science into policy making in Western European Government see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solly_Zuckerman. Also see him mentioned as part of the early history of OR with respect to South Africa http://www.orssa.org.za/wiki/pmwiki.php?n=AboutTheSociety.EarlyHistory

VIEWPOINT
Gonzalo Oviedo

As representatives of the world’s governments gather to address shortages in major foodstuffs and rising prices, Gonzalo Oviedo counsels them to focus on ecosystems. The modern business-dominated agricultural industry, he argues, promotes the degradation of nature - and that, in turn, means less and worse food.

more