CIGR Newsletter No 36

NEWS OF THE SECTIONS, WORKING GROUPS AND MEMBERS

Prof. P.F.J. ABEELS nominated ASAE Fellow

Pierre F.J. Abeels is Professor Emeritus with the Agricultural Engineering Department and Faculty of Sciences in Agronomy at the Catholic University of Louvain-La-Neuve in Belgium. He is being recognised for contributions and research in the field of forest engineering, off-road vehicle traction, and the development and evaluation of various agricultural engineering programmes and projects for international organisations. A recent book 'Forest Engineering' reaffirms his leadership in the field of forest engineering.

A long-standing member of both ASAE and CIGR he is also member of a variety of international agricultural associations.

Prof. F. BAKKER-ARKEMA, P.E., Chairman CIGR Section VI, nominated ASAE Fellow

Fred Bakker-Arkema is a Professor with the Agricultural Engineering Department of Michigan State University. He is honoured for his dedication to teaching and research. His original research on numerical modelling of grain drying set the standard against which all research in this area has since been measured. He is co-author of one of the leading texts in use today, 'Drying and Storage of Grains and Oilseeds', and his 100-plus research publications are widely cited. ASAE committee work have included establishing the society's claim in food engineering and creating in liaison with CIGR, the international commission of which ASAE is now an organisational member.

On behalf of CIGR we congratulate both nominees who are also very much involved in CIGR.

Report of the Board Meeting of Section II of CIGR

Formal meetings of the Board of Section II:

1995: March 27, Paris, France

1996: June 20, Catholic University, Piacenza, ltaly

1997: on October 7-10, Vinkeloord, The Netherlands (tentative)

1998: on February 2-6, Rabat, Morocco (tentative)

Past Activities

1996:

Planned Activities

1997:

1998:

1999:

Proposal for a new Working Group

A new Working Group on the re-use of old rural buildings may be proposed by Prof. Menella

Minutes of the last meeting of the Board of Section II of CIGR

This meeting was held on 20 June, 1996 at the Catholic University, Piacenza, ltaly

Attendants: Y. Hashimoto (JP), J. Voermans (NL), S. Pedersen (DK), M. Tillie (FR),V. Menella (IT) and E. Maceuari (IT).

Observer: CIGR-President Prof. E. Berge

Excused: E. Kishida (JP), L. De Alencar Nääs (BR), J. Owen (GB), T. Kuczinsky (PL),

Absent: H. van den Weghe (DE).

Hashimoto chairs the meeting.

The agenda is accepted

The Minutes of the previous meeting are accepted without any remarks

The chairman and the attendants are astonished that there is no signal at all from H. van den Weghe (DE) since his election as a member of the Board in Milano in 1994.

Voermans mentioned that van den Weghe has reacted positively on the request for membership of the scientific committee of CIGR - Section II's symposium in Vinkeloord (NL) next year.

There is no information from I. De Alencar Nääs concerning the suggested meeting on "Agricultural Construction". The chairman and the attendants do not expect that there will be a CIGR - Section II meeting in Brazil in 1997.

Planned activities

Miscellaneous

Next meeting of the Board of Section II : October 7, 1997 in Vinkeloord, The Netherlands

September 1996.

(communicated by J. Voermans, V.Chm. & Y. Hashimoto, Chm. Section II.)

Activities of Section III of CIGR in 1995-96

First of all, I must make a general statement for these 2 years: we unfortunately, had not enough board meeting opportunities, and communication among members between these meetings was poor.

Let me also stress that the major activity of the chairman has been devoted to research for contributors for chapter III of CIGR's Handbook.

Finally, a special mention must be made for the very interesting Seminar organised in Morocco, by our Secretary, with less people than expected, but with highly qualified participants from various countries.

1. Section meeting opportunities, and communication

At the end of the report on the Board meeting held in Milano on August 30, 1994, a meeting in Paris during the SIMA exhibition (February 26 to March 2) was proposed. In a letter from January 10, 1995, I maintained the idea, confirmed later on by fax, for March 1, but in an informal way, as few attendants were expected in reply to my faxes.

Nevertheless we met with Dr. Faust, Prof. O. Marchenko and Prof. O. Kitani (representing Dr. T. Ichikawa). I prepared a short report of this meeting with the strategy and activities for 1994-98 for the Section which was presented at the Technical Board meeting of CIGR in Paris, on February 26.

I also circulated some news on August 2, 1995, once again asking for a contribution to the strategy of our Section. Perhaps we missed an opportunity to meet at the Club of Bologna where a very fruitful meeting took place concerning the Handbook, one of our priorities.

There was no section meeting in 1996, partly due to the cancellation of the SIMA fair in March.

A meeting between the chairman and the secretary, took place just after the Seminar in Morocco. A short report on the seminar (point 3 of the agenda of Madrid) and information on other items have been circulated at the Technical Board Meeting in Budapest and to the Section Board Members (letter of May 22, 1996), together with a note on the “Present state of contributions for Chapter III of CIGR's Handbook” (May 31, 1996).

I was not very successful with answers on questions set out in these papers, except from Derek Sutton, E.H. Bourarach, and the Past, Acting and Incoming Presidents I have received sound and useful advice. I am sure that many other members have good ideas, but seem reluctant to write them down. This strengthens my belief that nothing can replace a real contact around a table (not only a restaurant one, though eventually it may help!).

2. Handbook activities:

Reluctant at the very beginning to play a role in the edition of Volume III of CIGR's handbook, caused both by the uncertainties on my time availability for it (linked with my move away from CEMAGREF), and by the late invitation to join the editors team, I finally agreed to act as co-editor, Bill Stout remaining the main one.

I could not attend the meeting of June 95 in Chicago, but had a meeting with Bill Stout in September 1995. In August 1995, I asked the Board Members to advise me on contributors, and some of them could attend the Club of Bologna meeting, on 5 November 1995. A first draft with possible contributors resulted from this very positive meeting.

To save CIGR funds, I did not attend the Editorial meeting in Budapest (June, 1996), but sent the information to Bill Stout who was able to attend.

None of the Board Members could attend the meeting in Phoenix, on 15 July 1996, where I met Prof. O. Kitani, Prof. B. Stout and most of the US contributors.

After this Phoenix round table, a final list of authors and co-authors has been prepared, open for discussion and modification (point 5 of the Madrid agenda)

  1. Seminars sponsored by Section III

4. Conferences without direct involvement of Section III

5. Budget of the Section

The former chairman, did not consume the available budget. At the end of 1994, the provisional amount reached 77.758 Belgian francs (about 2480 USD).

Due to savings regulations by the French Government I could not have my travel expenses paid by the Ministry. After approval by the President and the Secretary General, and using low-cost air tickets, the following travels have been paid for: Club of Bologna (Nov 95 - 360 USD), ASAE / CIGR Meetings in Phoenix (July 96 - 2120 USD, incl. accommodations).

The French Agricultural Engineering Association has agreed to pay my travel expenses to Morocco (1700 USD), Madrid (1200 USD) and Bologna (360 USD), accounting to a total of 3260 USD.

Costs of secretariat, communication, and labour are, as usual, nil .

6. Other activities

7. Some concluding remarks

As stated recently by New Holland's President 86% of the world population, cultivating 74% of the potential land for agriculture is out of Europe and the USA, and most of the mechanisation in the coming years will develop out of these two regions, even if they remain presently the more important market.

Strategy and activities of our Section should also move the same way, and try to find the means to do it. It has already been stated in our plan for 1994-98, but we have to take the necessary steps to make it a reality, at least step-by-step as it is a long-term action with basic political support needed for it. As we are not politicians, this is a first difficulty.

Coming back to our normal level and to a question raised by Derek Sutton about whether we put our focus mainly on application of engineering to agricultural and rural development, rather than on farm mechanisation and machinery, no real clear-cut reply can be given, except that the more you get in cooperation with other specialists, the more you need to be excellent in your own expertise.

With their long experience in mechanisation, developed countries are now evaluating the positive and negative drawbacks of some excesses and propose a multicriteria approach of mechanisation, integrating the long-term effects, to those who are starting such experiments (expecting that lessons from experience find some echo, which is unfortunately not the case in all countries!). The long-term expertise and the necessity to capitalise such experience has led our Secretary to propose a change in the way seminars are held by preparing files more on horizontal questions of mechanisation, thereby including socio-economic and ecological aspects.

This idea is quite familiar with Prof. Pellizzi who started with the Academia di Georgofili and European research centres a working group aiming at a European project examining all these questions for each main channel of products expanding this also to their processing and marketing.

If methods for systems approach can be developed inside one section, applications need precisely a joint venture with most of the others. We have to develop multisectional seminars on this subject, and if we have the possibility multisection training for engineers.

Another suggestion from Dr. Bourarach is to encourage the creation of regional associations, but he chose the African case which is certainly not the easier. At present it is in East, South-East and South Africa where national societies already exist with a sufficient number of professionals in this field, which simplifies the creation of a regional society.

If we really want to maintain contact with the engineering challenges in less developed regions, we must find at CIGR level some funds, or manage jointly with regional associations funds available from Governmental or private sources, to cover travel expenses of local engineers to meet on continental and intercontinental level other professionals in their field of work.

For seminars in our field of interest we have, as member of the Board to make our Section known and make proposals to help the organisers, or work with them (i.e. participate in the Scientific or Organising Committee if required).

For seminars addressing fields covered by several Sections, each of us has to make an effort to participate, and eventually organise cross-sectional board meetings if appropriate.

For both, CIGR has to give priority to less developed countries to give them access to financial sources to help them keep in touch with the state-of-the-art of agricultural technology.

Finding contributors for the Handbook, or an expert for a mission, sending a special call for papers for some special seminar of the Section, establishing a new Working Group, evaluating on a real basis the increase or decrease in the number of members, etc. are some reasons to ask for an electronic database where one could find the basic specialities of CIGR members. If it already exists, it should be made available at the level of Section Boards. This work must be undertaken by each Section. Only the Executive Board of CIGR can judge the feasibility of it!.

Paris, 13 September 1996.

(communicated by Dr. Chéze, Chm Section III)

Report of the Meeting of the Board of CIGR Section V

The Board of Section V of CIGR, “Management, Ergonomics and Systems Engineering” met at FAT, Tänikon, Switzerland on September 19-20, 1996. The meeting was chaired by Dr. W. Luder, Chairman of Section V.

  1. Information on activities 1995-96

1.1.Report of former Working Group 17 “Labour and Technology in Milk Production”.by J. Palonen / Prof. E.E. Oksanen of the TTS Institute, Finland: Now it is obvious that collecting task times from different countries is necessary, but without any exact definitions of the measured time elements they are not very useful.

1.2.New Working Group 17 “International Database for Labour and Machinery in Agriculture” This Working Group is chaired by Dr. J. Achten of IMAG-DLO, Wageningen, The Netherlands: Cooperation of different European Institutes in data collection is needed because of the limited personal and financial possibilities of all partners. The Working Group is doing a good job. Unfortunately the financing by means of EU funds has failed to realise until now. Therefore the Board of Section V is willing to put all its money for 1996 (40 000 BEF) into the activity of this Working Group. Distribution of this amount according to the proposal of Jan Achten.

1.3.Concerted action presented at Brussels on March 15, 1996

Unfortunately rejected by EC panel. Questions about the final users and the economical aspects had been put forward. Before trying to get into another EU research programme our connections with Brussels, our lobbying as well as our argumentation should be improved. Useful proposals and contact persons in the EU should be communicated to Jan Achten, IMAG-DLO.

1.4.Possibilities for cooperation with Special Interest Group SIG 21 of EurAgEng “Systems Management, Ergonomics and Safety”, (Chairman A. Peltola, TTS Institute, Finland). Difficulties to start up activities of SIG 21. No cooperation with Section V up to now.

1.5.First steps into Systems Engineering

The visit to the Institute of Industrial Engineering and Management of the ETH, Zurich, Switzerland, on Thursday 19 September opened our minds towards many theoretical aspects of this “generally applicable problem- solving method for project management”. It became obvious that we have to find intelligent examples from our field of work in order to illustrate the fundamental ideas of Systems Engineering which are:

Practical examples for treatment according to this method should be sent to Werner Luder, who will discuss them with Prof. Züst. If there is sufficient material for a workshop at the CIOSTA Congress of 1997 at Kaposvar, the next step into demonstration and practical application will be made in Hungary.

  1. Replacement of inactive members of the Board

It is obvious that our colleagues from Australia, Japan or India don't have the financial funds to attend the meetings every year. This is a problem of going worldwide with CIGR which should be solved by CIGR and not by the Section Boards. Anyway the proposals for new candidates for the Section Boards should come from the national associations of the member countries.

  1. Information through the Internet and CIGR Newsletter

Some regular information about the activities of Working Group 17 should be spread by the Internet. This note could be published in CIGR Newsletter. (beginning activities in Systems Engineering might be of general interest).

  1. Activities and Events of Section V in 1997-98

CIGR V / CIOSTA Congress 1997 at Kaposvar will be organised by Prof. Dr. G. Széles at the Pannon Agricultural University, Faculty of Animal Science, Institute of Economics and Organisation on August 28-30, 1997.

Topics:

Furthermore a Workshop on Systems Engineering will be organised if plenty of practical examples from agriculture can be gathered before the end of this year.

The next meeting of the Board of Section V will also take place in Hungary during the CIGR V / CIOSTA Congress 1997.

As to the CIGR / EURAGENG Congress 1998 in Morocco and the Board Meeting 1998 at the same place the financial possibilities of the Board Members have to be taken into account.

Tänikon, September 26, 1996.

(communicated by Dr. W. Luder, Chm. Section V)

 

Back To Currect Issue Index