Acceleration of Developments for tomorrow's Organic markets

The global Organic market for food has expanded to upwards of US$ 60 billion in consumer purchases annually. However, the market is concentrated in only a few countries, mostly in Europe and North America, and the global market share is far below 1%. We need further developments if the aspirations of the Organic World to provide solutions to global challenges are to be realized. The market and the attractiveness of Organic products on the market are changing, so that we need to adapt. The positioning of Organic products in the various markets, the responses of the Organic Sector to upcoming concerns, the transparency of processes and products, and the reporting of impacts are issues to which marketers need to be up to date

Permissive Controller Synthesis for Probabilistic Systems

We propose novel controller synthesis techniques for probabilistic systems modelled using stochastic two-player games: one player acts as a controller, the second represents its environment, and probability is used to capture uncertainty arising due to, for example, unreliable sensors or faulty system components. Our aim is to generate robust controllers that are resilient to unexpected system changes at runtime, and flexible enough to be adapted if additional constraints need to be imposed. We develop a permissive controller synthesis framework, which generates multi-strategies for the controller, offering a choice of control actions to take at each time step. We formalise the notion of permissivity using penalties, which are incurred each time a possible control action is disallowed by a multi-strategy. Permissive controller synthesis aims to generate a multi-strategy that minimises these penalties, whilst guaranteeing the satisfaction of a specified system property. We establish several key results about the optimality of multi-strategies and the complexity of synthesising them. Then, we develop methods to perform permissive controller synthesis using mixed integer linear programming and illustrate their effectiveness on a selection of case studies

Atomic matter wave scanner

We report on the experimental realization of an atom optical device, that allows scanning of an atomic beam. We used a time-modulated evanescent wave field above a glass surface to diffract a continuous beam of metastable Neon atoms at grazing incidence. The diffraction angles and efficiencies were controlled by the frequency and form of modulation, respectively. With an optimized shape, obtained from a numerical simulation, we were able to transfer more than 50% of the atoms into the first order beam, which we were able to move over a range of 8 mrad.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

The transition of maca from neglect to market prominence: lessons for improving use strategies and market chains of minor crops

Maca is an edible root crop of the crucifer family endemic to the Puna of the high Andes in Central Peru around Lake Junin, a chilly plateau at 4000 m altitude. Grown in the late 1980s exclusively in its native area, on no more than 50 ha, maca has experienced over the last years a meteoric rise from an overlooked botanical curiosity to Internet notoriety. In this study, the authorsnarrate the economic history of the crop, andexamine the players and processes behind its re-emergence from neglect and under-use.Theyprovide anaccount of maca’s history, and attempt to disentangle the myths from the realities surrounding the crop, its products and protagonists. Theirgoal is to derive broader lessons for the development of value chains for under-utilized crops. The specific objectives of this study are: a) to describe key processes that caused the expansion of maca cultivation and commercialization, b) to identify factors constraining maca market chain development, and c) to assess the effects of market development on rural livelihoods and on maca biodiversity

The participatory market chain approach: stimulating pro-poor market-chain innovation

Innovation in the food and agriculture sector is frequently short-circuited by a lack of trust and communication between actors in the market chain. To overcome these problems and stimulate innovation, the Participatory Market Chain Approach (PMCA) brings together small farmers, market agents, and service providers for an intense process of facilitated interaction. The PMCA uses a flexible three-stage participatory process to improve communication, build trust, and facilitate collaboration among participants so that they can jointly identify, analyze, and exploit new market opportunities. The PMCA focuses on innovation in products, technologies, and ways of working together. By carefully selecting market chains and partners, and building in social responsibility, the PMCA can lead to favourable outcomes and impacts for poor farmers, typically the weakest link in the chain. The PMCA requires facilitation and technical support from professionals with good social skills, research experience, and marketing knowledge, based in a neutral research and development organization. To ensure that impacts are sustained, the PMCA is best used as part of a broader programme of market chain development