CIGR Newsletter No 40

++ CIGR NEWS++CIGR NEWS++CIGR NEWS++

ASAE has a new Executive Vice President

Melissa Moore has accepted the position of Executive Vice President of the Society for Engineering in Agriculture, Food and Biological Systems, ASAE. In this position, Moore will head up ASAE’s world headquarters’ staff in St. Joseph, Michigan, integrating the 26-person staff with teams of members. She will also lead ASAE in areas of member services, have fiscal responsibilities and serve as secretary and treasurer of the ASAE Foundation.

Melissa Moore comes to ASAE after serving for almost five years as Executive Director of AACE International, a professional association for the advancement of total cost management with more than 6,000 members in 78 countries. While at AACE International Moore served on the Board of Directors and the Executive Committee. In addition to publishing a monthly magazine and various other publications, she oversaw AACE’s certification, technical and educational programmes.

Moore brings with her more than 15 years of association management experience. She has held a variety of positions, including assistant director of government relations and director of public affairs development for the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and managing director of the American Association of Engineering Societies. She also served as the Washington liaison for the American Nuclear Society.

(Melissa Moore, ASAE’s new Executive Vice President)

A native of Chicago, Illinois, Moore graduated from Wells College with a B.A. in political science. She is a member of the Council of Engineering and Scientific Society Executives and the American Society of Association Executives, and is involved in a variety of civic organisations. She is listed in Who’s Who in Finance and Industry, Who’s Who of American Women, and Who’s Who of Emerging Leaders.

Moore will be on board full-time at ASAE headquarters in August. Russell H. Hahn, who has been serving as ASAE’s Interim Executive Vice President will continue as the Society’s Director of Standards.

CIGR ‘s President has sent a letter of congratulations to ASAE’s new Executive Vice President.

A Short Report on the CIGR Meetings in Norway

A series of CIGR meetings were held in Norway last May. I would like to present a short report on these meetings to describe a phase of worldwide activities of CIGR.

1. International Symposium on Concrete for Sustainable Agriculture

This symposium was held on May 21-23 in Stavanger, Norway, and attracted over 80 participants from 20 countries. Mrs. Tora Aasland, Governor of Stavanger opened the symposium with a warm welcome. Prof. Egil Berge, Chairman of the Organisation Committee and I, as CIGR President, addressed the audience in the opening session. There were 33 presentations on new concrete technology in agriculture, aquaculture and rural communities. The participants enjoyed not only the vivid presentations and active discussions but also the real examples during the post-symposium excursion in the beautiful landscape along an impressive fjord.

2. Technical Board Meeting

The Section Chairmen and the Presidium members held a meeting in Kolbotn on May 24 and discussed section activities and elections.

The Sections are preparing various conferences and symposia as listed further. Section activities will be strengthened in some areas, like greenhouse technology in Section II, for example. Part of the Section Board members will be elected at the World Congress in Rabat, Morocco in February 1998. Section Chairs will prepare a list of candidates and the Presidium will send the list to the member associations for additional recommendations and voting will then be carried out by mail.

3. Editorial Board Meeting for the CIGR Handbook

A comprehensive handbook in five volumes covering all agricultural engineering and related fields is under editorial process. The volume editors, co-editors and authors are now working on improving the manuscripts in their volumes. The board decided to finalise the list of contents and authors at the next meeting on August 11 in Minneapolis, USA.

4. Executive Board Meeting

The Presidium together with seven Executive Board members held their annual meeting at the Agricultural University of Norway in Aas on May 26 and discussed on all phases of CIGR activities and others. I would like to introduce some of them to you.

I hope you could pick up some of the recent worldwide activities of CIGR from my short report and I urge you to become more involved in our future activities.

Prof. O. Kitani, President of CIGR.

Report on the Workshop ‘The Use of Water in Sustainable Agriculture’

The workshop was held in Albacete (Spain) on 2,3 and 4 June 1997. It was organised by the University of Castilla-La Mancha in collaboration with CIGR (Section I: Land and Water Use), ICID (W.G. on Sustainable Crops and Water Use), EurAgEng (SIG 20: Soil and Water) and some Spanish scientific Institutions

76 Specialists from 15 different countries discussed topics regarding the efficiency of agricultural water use from three different points of view:-socio-economic aspects -environmental impact -irrigation technology.

The workshop was developed in: -3 keynote speeches -4 working sessions where 30 papers were presented -2 poster sessions where 20 posters were exhibited -2 video sessions -1 round table and -1 study tour.

Like in other events of this kind the general objective was the presentation of works about these topics developed in different countries, giving special attention to both purely investigation and technology transfer works.

Communicated by C. Fabeiro, Secretary of the workshop.

The Southern and Eastern Africa Society of Agricultural Engineering (SEASAE) - SEASAE gets a home in Kenya

The Southern and Eastern Africa Society of Agricultural Engineers (SEASAE) has now moved its secretariat from Zimbabwe to Kenya. The old home for the society was at the Department of Soil Science and Agricultural Engineering at the University of Zimbabwe. The new home will be at the Department of Agricultural Engineering of the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology for a period of three years. SEASAE is grateful to the Vice Chancellor of the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, Prof. Ratemo Michieka for agreeing to let SEASAE be hosted at Juja.

The address of the new home is:
Southern and Eastern Africa Society of Agricultural Engineers, c/o Dept. Agricultural Engineering, Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, P.O. Box 62000, Nairobi, Kenya.
Fax.: +254 151 21 847 / 31 306.

SEASAE is organising to be connected to the Internet where members will be able to communicate easily with each other.

The movement of the secretariat comes about as a result of the elections that were held during the last General Assembly which was convened at Arusha International Conference Centre - Tanzania on 02-05 October 1996. The hotly contested

elections gave the following results for a new Board with their respective contact addresses:

Chairman: Dr. Nuhu Hatibu, Tanzania Society of Agricultural Engineers, P.O. Box 3003, Morogoro, Tanzania.
Fax.: +255 56 37 18 /37 48
E-mail: Hatibu@sua.80.tz

Vice-Chairman: Dr. Nick Kwendakwema, University of Zambia, Technology Development Unit, P.O. Box 32379, Lusaka, Zambia.
E-mail: Kwendakwema@eng.unza.zm
Secretary General: Eng. Mwamzali Shiribwa, Engineering Division, P.O. Box 30028, Nairobi, Kenya.
Fax.: +254 2 722 605

Treasurer: Dr. Isaac Inoti, Dept. Agricultural Engineering, Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, P.O. Box 62000, Nairobi, Kenya.
Fax.: +254 151 21 847 /31 306
Other members of the Board include the Chairmen of the Technical Committees:

Land and Water Use:
Dr. Aiden Senzanje, Dept. Soil Science and Agricultural Engineering, University of Zimbabwe, P.O. Box MP 167, Mount Pleasant, Harare, Zimbabwe.
Fax.: +263 4 333 407

Structures and Environment:
Dr. Lawrence Gumbe, Log Associates, P.O. Box 29082, Nairobi, Kenya.
Fax.: +254 2 44 80 35
E-mail: logassoc@arcc.or.ke

Agriculture Power Machinery:
Dr. Philip Owende, Dept. Agricultural Engineering, P.O. Box 30197, Nairobi, Kenya.
Fax.: +254 2 630 810
E-mail: powende@ken.healthnet.org

Management Ergonomics:
Dr. Makokha Maende, Dept. Agricultural Engineering, P.O. Box 30197, Nairobi, Kenya.
Fax.: 254 2 593 465
E-mail: kendat@ken.healthnet.org

Food & Agricultural Processing
Mr. Wilfred Odogola, Senior Research Officer, Kawanda Research Station, P.O. Box 7065, Kampala, Uganda.

The SEASAE membership is growing at a very commendable rate where there are now 64 registered members from member countries (i.e. Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Lesotho and lately Mozambique) that were operating under the Agriculture Operations Technology Programme (AGROTECH) funded by the Swedish International Development Agency. AGROTECH has now changed its name to Farm-level Applied Research Methods in East and Southern Africa (FARMESA). Most of the participating countries have their own individual societies for agricultural engineers. Other countries are in the process of establishing agricultural engineering societies as they gain critical mass of trained agricultural engineers.

Giuseppe Pellizzi receives ASAE - Kishida International Award

At its Annual International Meeting held in Minneapolis, ASAE presented its 1997 Kishida International Award to Giuseppe Pellizzi, professor of agricultural machinery and mechanisation at the University of Milano, Italy, in recognition of outstanding contributions as an engineer, visionary, organiser and leader. He has advanced the profession of agricultural engineering around the world and is widely acclaimed for his unique combination of academic, scientific and interpersonal skills.

ASAE, the Society for engineering in agriculture, food and biological systems, presents the award annually to honour outstanding contributions to engineering, mechanisation, technologically related programmes of education, research, development, consultation or technology transfer that have resulted in significant improvements outside the United States. Initiated in 1978, the award is endowed by Shin-Norinsha Co. Ltd. of Japan, Publisher of Agricultural Mechanisation in Asia, Africa and Latin America magazine and other publications- in honour of Yoshikuni Kishida, founder of the firm.

Pellizzi’s leadership role in the International Commission of Agricultural Engineering (CIGR), of which he was President

in 1992-1994 and later Honorary President, was instrumental in initiating the change of CIGR from a European focused organisation to a global agricultural engineering network.

Under Pellizzi’s guidance, the Institute of Agricultural Engineering of the University of Milano, Italy, hosted the XIIth Congress of CIGR in 1994 which was attended by over 700 agricultural engineers from 54 countries. He is founder and President of the renowned Club of Bologna which has served as a forum since 1989 for developing strategies to promote mechanisation and to encourage appropriate technology transfer to developing countries.

His academic accomplishments include service on several academic boards, societies, and committees and authorship of over 200 scientific and technical papers and 6 published books related to agricultural mechanisation and efficient energy utilisation.

A 27 year member of ASAE, Pellizzi is also member of the French Academy of Agricultural Sciences, the Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences and the Italian Academy of Agriculture.

On behalf of CIGR we extend our sincere congratulations to Prof. Pellizzi, Honorary President of CIGR.

CIGR ACTIVITIES AT ASAE / MINNEAPOLIS

August 10-14, 1997

CIGR was represented at the ASAE meeting by President Kitani, Incoming President Stout, Honorary Past President Pellizzi, Section IV Chairman Jungbluth, Section VI Chairman Bakker-Arkema, and Executive Board Members Bartali and Hahn.

Professor Giuseppi Pellizzi from the University of Milano, Italy, was awarded with the 1997 Kishida International Award for his outstanding contributions to the profession of agricultural engineering.

Two CIGR display tables were used to advertise CIGR activities and to promote attendance at the Congress in Rabat, Morocco in February 1998.

Professor Bartali of ANAFID was present along with other CIGR officials to answer questions and distribute brochures, newsletters and other CIGR materials. Over 400 individuals have indicated their intention to attend the Congress. The goal is to attract at least 500 people. A CIGR Handbook Editors meeting was held with ASAE Publications Manager Donna Hull.

Approximately 2/3 of the chapter manuscripts have been received and most are expected in the next month or so. The editing and technical review process is well underway. Publication of the 5-volume, 1400 page handbook series by ASAE is planned for late 1998. The handbook will be published electronically on a compact disk in addition to the traditional book form.

A campaign was announced to raise funds to place one set in every developing country. If anyone is interested in donating a set, please contact the CIGR General Secretariat.

The Awards Committee (Stout, Pellizzi and Kishida) met to develop a plan for an expanded CIGR Awards program to recognize meritorious service.

ASAE's International Committee (611) passed a resolution to explore ways to collaborate with the CIGR newsletter. Details will have to be worked out, but the concept is to incorporate ASAE international news in the CIGR quarterly newsletter.

Two CIGR briefing meetings were attended by approximately 30 people.

Interest in CIGR seems to be growing rapidly. The proposed CIGR global e-mail network and the CIGR electronic journal received enthusiastic support.

An editor-in-chief for the electronic journal has been identified and plans are underway to produce a prototype for discussion at the XIII Congress in Rabat in February, 1998. Individuals with substantial publications experience who are interested in serving on the editorial board should contact Bill Stout (stout@tamu.edu).

The International Commission of ASAE will be represented on ASAE's new Board of Trustees as follows:

1997-1998 Y. Kishida
1998-2000 G. Singh

The International Commission will have a permanent seat on the nominating committee thus helping to ensure that international interests (including CIGR) are met.

Address: B. A. Stout, Professor, Agricultural Engineering Dept.,Texas A&M University, 325 Scoates Hall, College Station, TX 77843-2117
Phone: (409)847-9306, Fax: (409)845-3932
E-mail: stout@tamu.edu

What about CIGR’s Web site and its accessibility

Since a few years CIGR has its own Web site on the Internet. It provides the members of CIGR not only with additional information on its activities (Calendar of Events, Newsletters…), its structure, its staff, but also with links to other regional associations and related Web sites and gives you the opportunity to get in touch with CIGR Staff by simply clicking on the appropriate address. This service is run by the Webmaster Task Group and is supported by the Agricultural University of Norway, through which server the service is offered and for which we are very grateful.

The address of this site appears in every issue of the Newsletter and Bulletin and can also be found in CIGR’s leaflet.

Now and then the General Secretariat is questioned on the problems of members to access the Web site.

Geir Tutturen of the Agricultural University of Norway and collaborator of Prof. Egil Berge set up this service a few years ago and we asked him about the problems that some members experience with the accessibility of CIGR’s Web site.

As he explains a good answer is difficult to give but he gives us some more general information so that we can comprehend the problems involved and possible remedies.

First of all the Internet is generally unreliable, basically for two major reasons. The first reason is the fact that the Internet in its construction is an anarchy. It consists of multiple independent networks with no overall authority. The sub-networks may have some more authorative properties, but there is no central instance which is generally responsible. So in other words the whole Internet is a giant mixture of voluntary partnerships, where actually nobody guarantees anything. So when you try to establish a connection through Internet you are actually relying on several independent networks and the path to reach the desired service may be a different one each time you try. If something doesn’t work it isn’t always possible to pinpoint a specific cause and it is not necessarily the end providers fault.

The second reason of the unreliability of the Internet is the transport protocol itself (TCP/IP) which is not designed to offer guaranteed connections or bandwidths. Even if a connection is established once, there is no way to allocate this ‘connection’ or bandwidth for yourself. Each new request is competing with everyone out there. Most often it works the way we want it to. However, the speed may vary, and one of the main problems today is the increasing traffic. This means that some parts of the Internet may be more or less jammed at some intervals during the day. For example, if a European citizen wants to search a server in the USA he or she should better do that before the Americans go to work, i.e. when the net is less congested. Some servers in crowded areas are simply unreachable during ‘rush hours’ and you only get a time-out. This is not the providers’ fault.

Furthermore, a combination of a low speed connection at one or both sides of the path and traffic problems may cause a general time-out, i.e. if you make a request to a service in a heavy loaded network there may still be sufficient ‘openings’ in the heavy loaded network to supply you with the requested information now and then, but if the user has a low speed modem connection he may not be able to take advantage of the ‘openings’ he gets and he may achieve a low priority if the request rate is low.

For all these reasons there will be some unequal accessibility to our service, depending from where requests are made, and probably more important when the requests are made.

The CIGR Web service is provided by the Agricultural University of Norway, which has a 256 kbit connection to the high-speed Internet backbone. This may be a faster connection than what many other providers have got, yet it is still not a very fast connection. If several people at the campus by coincidence are downloading from external servers simultaneously then this line will be completely loaded to its limit. A request from somewhere far away will have few chances of success.

So, what I want to say is that normally it works fine, but sometimes you may be unlucky and chances of success vary during the day.

Secondly, there is server reliability and the possibility of technical problems. The server running the service for CIGR, i.e. that of the Agricultural University of Norway, has an average high reliability, which means keeping it up has got priority. However, occasionally there is a need for maintenance that requires taking it down and there is of course a certain (and normal) risk of breakdowns. So far there is no backup service that takes over automatically. Hence, the service will be dead when the server is down (we are working on this though). All of this may lead to short periods of unavailability. Downtime is nevertheless kept at its minimum, but sadly enough cannot be avoided.

Looking pragmatically on it: this is just a question of the price tag attached to it. The service is offered free to CIGR and other organisations, the only requirement is that it should be maintained by a university employee, which is quite normal. A more reliable service could be obtained from a commercial Internet Service Provider (ISP) , with a direct high-speed connection to the backbone. Then reliability would be something that we pay for and could demand. Such a service, however, is far beyond CIGR’s budget and even in such cases traffic jams are still possible.

A few points worth to watch when you experience regular problems in accessing a server are:

I hope that this article will contribute to a better understanding of the problems that may occur in accessing CIGR’s Web site, as in fact any other server on the Internet.

CIGR has a Webmaster Working Group with the following members:

G. Tutturen, Webmaster CIGR

Conservando, a new bulletin from the National Network on Soil and Water Conservation of Colombia

The first issue of a new bulletin in Spanish called Conservando has just been released. Its aim is to bring together people working in different fields of the soil and water conservation area in Colombia but a cordial invitation is sent to all those interested to publish in this newsletter or to cooperate in this field of work. Coordinator is Eng. Carlos A. Gonzalez M.. He can be reached at the following address: Red. Nacional de Conservacion de Suelos y Agua, Dep. de Ingenieria Agricola, Facultad de Ingenieria, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Santafe de Bogota, Colombia.

Fax.: +57 1 368 12 71

Cooperation through networking

The main purposes of the Special Interest Group (SIG) on Soil and Water of the European Society of Agricultural Engineers (EurAgEng) are:

In this endeavour, the European Regional Working Group (ERWG) of the International Commission on Irrigation and Drainage (ICID) and the EurAgEng SIG on Soil and Water reached an agreement of close cooperation and mutual assistance for knowledge transfer in Europe.

The two chairmen - Dr. Wolfram Dirksen and Prof. Daniele De Wrachien on behalf of ICID and EurAgEng respectively - signed a Memorandum of Understanding which, among others, provides for the following:

Prof. Daniele De Wrachien Chairman EurAgEng SIG on Soil and Water

Chilean Congress CIACH ’97

The Chilean Congress on Agricultural Engineering which was recently held was a success. More than 100 papers were presented and the congress was attended by some 60 engineers

from Chile, 40 from Argentina, 30 from Brazil and others from all over South America. As a result of the success a new congress is planned for 1999 and more information on the future congress can be found elsewhere in this issue

XIIIth WORLD CONGRESS ON

AGRICULTURAL ENGINEERING

CIGR+++++ASAE+++++EurAgEng+++++AAAE

Morocco will host the XIIIth Congress of the International Commission of Agricultural Engineering CIGR in February 1998 and hence will be the first developing country to organise such an important scientific and technical event which takes place every four years. The National Association of Land Improvement, Irrigation and Drainage, ANAFID, official representative of Morocco within CIGR has been permanently acting towards the increase of CIGR activities within developing countries and is delighted with the organisation of this congress in Africa.

This congress will be held in Rabat, Morocco on 2 - 6 February 1998. It is organised in collaboration with the Agronomic and Veterinary Institute Hassan II and the Administration of Agricultural Engineering.

The congress sessions will not take place at the Rabat Hyatt Regency Hotel as mentioned earlier but in the Rabat Hilton (Souissi, B.P. 450, Rabat, Morocco, Tel.: +212 7 67 56 56 Fax.: +212 7 67 14 92).

Congress languages are English and French and simultaneous translation will be provided.

Equipment and documentary technical exhibits will take place during the congress.

A programme of one day technical visits and study tours of one to five days after the congress together with an accompanying persons programme are available.

PROGRAMME:

Section I: Land and Water Use

Integrated land and water management in arid and semi-arid zones

  1. Basin water management
  2. Soil and water conservation
  3. Land use planning
  4. Appropriate technologies for rural road construction

Section II: Farm Buildings, Equipment, Structures and Environment

  1. Design and rehabilitation for irrigation water conveying structures
  2. Storage structures for durable and perishable agricultural products
  3. Equipment and environment control in animal buildings and warehouses
  4. Technical solutions for cost reduction in farm buildings

Section III: Equipment Engineering for Plant Production

  1. National strategies for agricultural mechanisation
  2. Mechanisation techniques adapted to Mediterranean and tropical regions
  3. Equipment and technical itineraries regarding the environment
  4. Technology transfer and local construction of appropriate agricultural mechanical equipment

Section IV: Rural Electricity and other Energy Sources

  1. Electrification and energy strategies for developing countries and in countries in transition
  2. Strategies for energy saving in agriculture
  3. Renewable energy input in rural development

Section V: Management, Ergonomics and Systems Engineering

  1. Farm management
  2. Work load, stress and health problems in agriculture
  3. Transfer of know-how to developing countries
  4. Miscellaneous

Section VI: Processing

  1. Technology of agro-processing industries and their effect on rural development
  2. Environment protection technologies for agro-processing industries
  3. Physical properties of agricultural products
  4. Effect of processing technologies on the quality of food and feed products
  5. Appropriate technologies for the processing of agricultural products.

Day-to-day programme

Sunday, February 1, 1998
09:00-15:00: Meeting of CIGR’s Presidium
16:00-18:30: Meeting of the Section Boards

Monday, February 2, 1998
09:00-12:30: Registration
09:00-14:00: Meeting of CIGR’s Executive Board
13:30-18:00: Registrations
14:00-18:00: City Tour of Rabat and Salé
19:00-20:30: Reception

Tuesday, February 3, 1998
09:00-10:30: Opening Ceremony
10:30-12:00: Technical Sessions
14:00-17:30: Technical Sessions
19:00-20:30: Concert

Wednesday, February 4, 1998
08:30-12:30: Technical Sessions
14:00-18:00: General Assembly CIGR
20:30-22:30: Dinner and shows

Thursday, February 5, 1998
08:30-12:30: Technical Sessions
14:00-17:00: Technical Sessions
17:15: Closing Session of Congress

Friday, February 6, 1998
07:30-18:00: Technical Tours

February 7-11, 1998
Study Tours (3 or 5 days).

Further information can be obtained from:
Prof. H. Bartali, ANAFID, 2 rue Haroun Errachid, 10101 Agdal, Rabat, Morocco.
Tel.: + 212 7 67 03 20 Fax.: + 212 7 67 03 03 e-mail: hbartali@atlasnet.net.ma or bhoussin@syfed-ma.ma.refer.org
or consult CIGR’s Web site at : http://wwworg.nlh.no/CIGR/event/Conf/XIIIth/

 

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