IMPORTANCE OF LEADERSHIP AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP FOR THE PERFORMANCE OF THE POULTRY SECDTOR IN ARGENTINA

The Argentine “industrial aviculture” started by 1960. The great development of the poultry sector was during the 1990s as a consequence of the direct price transfer due to technological and organizational improvements achieved in the sector. The objective of this paper is to identify how leadership and entrepreneurship have been important elements in the development of the Argentine poultry sector. The poultry sector is one of the faster development in Argentina and one that offers higher quality. This was achieved only because of great coordination due to leadership and entrepreneurship both at micro and macro level.Coordination, Innovations, Social Capital, Livestock Production/Industries,

AGRIBUSINESS EXECUTIVE EDUCATION AND KNOWLEDGE EXCHANGE: NEW MECHANISMS OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT INVOLVING THE UNIVERSITY, PRIVATE FIRM STAKEHOLDERS AND PUBLIC SECTOR

The Argentine scenario of the 90s shows that although competitiveness improved, the agrifood system is unable to react immediately to the market because of low efficiency, poor training in agribusiness and high taxation. In the year 2000, FAUBA, the School of Agronomy of the University of Buenos Aires, created two executive management postgraduate courses in food and agribusiness that combined theory with hands-on exercises focused on the competitive management of agrifood chains and on quality. The new courses intended to meet the demand of the food and agribusiness private and public sectors with the aim of creating knowledge, reconverting human resources and providing innovation capabilities, key to building competitiveness.Agribusiness, Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,

Host genotype interacts with aerial spore communities and influences the needle mycobiome of Norway spruce

The factors shaping the composition of the tree mycobiome are still under investigation. We tested the effects of host genotype, site, host phenotypic traits, and air fungal spore communities on the assembly of the fungi inhabiting Norway spruce needles. We used Norway spruce clones and spore traps within the collection sites and characterized both needle and air mycobiome communities by high-throughput sequencing of the ITS2 region. The composition of the needle mycobiome differed between Norway spruce clones, and clones with high genetic similarity had a more similar mycobiome. The needle mycobiome also varied across sites and was associated with the composition of the local air mycobiome and climate. Phenotypic traits such as diameter at breast height or crown health influenced the needle mycobiome to a lesser extent than host genotype and air mycobiome. Altogether, our results suggest that the needle mycobiome is mainly driven by the host genotype in combination with the composition of the local air spore communities. Our work highlights the role of host intraspecific variation in shaping the mycobiome of trees and provides new insights on the ecological processes structuring fungal communities inhabiting woody plants.This research was supported by the Swedish research council for Environment, Agricultural Sciences and Spatial Planning, FORMAS, project 2016-00798. M.E. and H.D.C were also supported by Formas project 2017-00402. J.O. was partially supported by the 'Ramon y Cajal' fellowship RYC-2015-17459. The authors would like to thank the owners of the seed orchards, Svenska skogsplantor AB and Sodra skogsagarna AB, for allowing us to sample the trees and assisting with the air mycobiome sampling. The authors also thank Antonio Rizzi, Rena Gadjieva, Maria Jonsson, and Katarina Ihrmark for their assistance with the laboratory and field work. The authors would like to acknowledge the support of the National Genomics Infrastructure (NGI)/Uppsala, Genome Center and UPPMAX for assisting us in massive parallel sequencing and computational infrastructure. Work performed at NGI/Uppsala Genome Center was funded by RFI/VR and Science for Life Laboratory, Sweden

Genetic landscape of 6089 inherited retinal dystrophies affected cases in Spain and their therapeutic and extended epidemiological implications

Inherited retinal diseases (IRDs), defined by dysfunction or progressive loss of photoreceptors, are disorders characterized by elevated heterogeneity, both at the clinical and genetic levels. Our main goal was to address the genetic landscape of IRD in the largest cohort of Spanish patients reported to date. A retrospective hospital-based cross-sectional study was carried out on 6089 IRD affected individuals (from 4403 unrelated families), referred for genetic testing from all the Spanish autonomous communities. Clinical, demographic and familiar data were collected from each patient, including family pedigree, age of appearance of visual symptoms, presence of any systemic findings and geographical origin. Genetic studies were performed to the 3951 families with available DNA using different molecular techniques. Overall, 53.2% (2100/3951) of the studied families were genetically characterized, and 1549 different likely causative variants in 142 genes were identified. The most common phenotype encountered is retinitis pigmentosa (RP) (55.6% of families, 2447/4403). The most recurrently mutated genes were PRPH2, ABCA4 and RS1 in autosomal dominant (AD), autosomal recessive (AR) and X-linked (XL) NON-RP cases, respectively; RHO, USH2A and RPGR in AD, AR and XL for non-syndromic RP; and USH2A and MYO7A in syndromic IRD. Pathogenic variants c.3386G > T (p.Arg1129Leu) in ABCA4 and c.2276G > T (p.Cys759Phe) in USH2A were the most frequent variants identified. Our study provides the general landscape for IRD in Spain, reporting the largest cohort ever presented. Our results have important implications for genetic diagnosis, counselling and new therapeutic strategies to both the Spanish population and other related populations.This work was supported by the Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII) of the Spanish Ministry of Health (FIS; PI16/00425 and PI19/00321), Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red Enfermedades Raras (CIBERER, 06/07/0036), IIS-FJD BioBank (PT13/0010/0012), Comunidad de Madrid (CAM, RAREGenomics Project, B2017/BMD-3721), European Regional Development Fund (FEDER), the Organización Nacional de Ciegos Españoles (ONCE), Fundación Ramón Areces, Fundación Conchita Rábago and the University Chair UAM-IIS-FJD of Genomic Medicine. Irene Perea-Romero is supported by a PhD fellowship from the predoctoral Program from ISCIII (FI17/00192). Ionut F. Iancu is supported by a grant from the Comunidad de Madrid (CAM, PEJ-2017-AI/BMD7256). Marta del Pozo-Valero is supported by a PhD grant from the Fundación Conchita Rábago. Berta Almoguera is supported by a Juan Rodes program from ISCIII (JR17/00020). Pablo Minguez is supported by a Miguel Servet program from ISCIII (CP16/00116). Marta Corton is supported by a Miguel Servet program from ISCIII (CPII17/00006). The funders played no role in study design, data collection, data analysis, manuscript preparation and/or publication decisions

Constraints and Limitations to the Design and Implementation or Origin and Quality Assurance Systems for Argentine Beef

This paper examines the current status of quality beef trade in Argentina together with production and marketing value-adding alternatives. Origin and quality assurance systems for beef have been developed as a way of differentiating products designed to satisfy increasingly demanding European and North American consumers. This led to gaining new markets and obtaining higher prices and profit margins. Such systems are based on institutional, organisational and technological innovations that are ultimately co-innovations, since they derive from generally accepted collective action processes. In Argentina, the strong influence of path dependency, particularly within informal institutional and organizational environments, threatens any possibility of widely applying and developing the new designs, thus turning the argentine livestock sector into an irremediable sector

Constraints and Limitations to the Design and Implementation or Origin and Quality Assurance Systems for Argentine Beef

This paper examines the current status of quality beef trade in Argentina together with production and marketing value-adding alternatives. Origin and quality assurance systems for beef have been developed as a way of differentiating products designed to satisfy increasingly demanding European and North American consumers. This led to gaining new markets and obtaining higher prices and profit margins. Such systems are based on institutional, organisational and technological innovations that are ultimately co-innovations, since they derive from generally accepted collective action processes. In Argentina, the strong influence of path dependency, particularly within informal institutional and organizational environments, threatens any possibility of widely applying and developing the new designs, thus turning the argentine livestock sector into an irremediable sector.Livestock Production/Industries,

IMPORTANCE OF LEADERSHIP AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP FOR THE PERFORMANCE OF THE POULTRY SECDTOR IN ARGENTINA

The Argentine “industrial aviculture” started by 1960. The great development of the poultry sector was during the 1990s as a consequence of the direct price transfer due to technological and organizational improvements achieved in the sector. The objective of this paper is to identify how leadership and entrepreneurship have been important elements in the development of the Argentine poultry sector. The poultry sector is one of the faster development in Argentina and one that offers higher quality. This was achieved only because of great coordination due to leadership and entrepreneurship both at micro and macro level

Ownership versus management: the role of farming networks in Argentina

Agroholdings are ‘horizontally and vertically integrated agricultural and agribusiness enterprises, which often have an explicit holding structure consisting on quite a number of legal entities’. This might be true in the countries the authors evaluated, but it certainly is not the case in Argentina, where horizontal and vertical coordination (rather than integration) is the norm. During the last 25 years the institutional environment impacted the way farming is organized in Argentina, mainly by using contracts between different players and service providers. The agricultural production sector increasingly shifted from a low to medium and to a large-scale business model, and production units expanded horizontally by means of land leases (coordination) and purchases (integration) in order to increase the scale of production and dilute fixed costs in an attempt to generate higher margins. In that sense this paper arises four questions: (1) why is it that in Argentina large-scale farming is predominantly done via contracts instead of vertical and horizontal integration?; (2) why have large-scale farming networks recently stalled or even declined in terms of area growth?; (3) how and why do these networks vary their scale of production, locations and strategies?; and (4) what can we expect in terms of evolution of different types of large-scale farming? It is observed that in Argentina there were different institutional contexts, sometimes with clearer and more stable conditions and low levels of uncertainty, sometimes with higher intervention policies and transaction costs. The paper discusses how new organizations emerged during different periods and scenarios, in a context of increased international demand for agricultural commodities. The most relevant conclusions drawn from this analysis are that, in Argentina’s agriculture, there is a continuous shift from ownership to management, although consolidation towards larger scale entities has slowed down due to the existence of institutional and policy restrictions

AGRIBUSINESS EXECUTIVE EDUCATION AND KNOWLEDGE EXCHANGE: NEW MECHANISMS OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT INVOLVING THE UNIVERSITY, PRIVATE FIRM STAKEHOLDERS AND PUBLIC SECTOR

The Argentine scenario of the 90s shows that although competitiveness improved, the agrifood system is unable to react immediately to the market because of low efficiency, poor training in agribusiness and high taxation. In the year 2000, FAUBA, the School of Agronomy of the University of Buenos Aires, created two executive management postgraduate courses in food and agribusiness that combined theory with hands-on exercises focused on the competitive management of agrifood chains and on quality. The new courses intended to meet the demand of the food and agribusiness private and public sectors with the aim of creating knowledge, reconverting human resources and providing innovation capabilities, key to building competitiveness

Interaction of drought- and pathogen-induced mortality in Norway spruce and Scots pine

Pathogenic diseases frequently occur in drought-stressed trees. However, their contribution to the process of drought-induced mortality is poorly understood. We combined drought and stem inoculation treatments to study the physiological processes leading to drought-induced mortality in Norway spruce (Picea abies) and Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) saplings infected with Heterobasidion annosum s.s. We analysed the saplings' water status, gas exchange, nonstructural carbohydrates (NSCs) and defence responses, and how they related to mortality. Saplings were followed for two growing seasons, including an artificially induced 3-month dormancy period. The combined drought and pathogen treatment significantly increased spruce mortality; however, no interaction between these stressors was observed in pine, although individually each stressor caused mortality. Our results suggest that pathogen infection decreased carbon reserves in spruce, reducing the capacity of saplings to cope with drought, resulting in increased mortality rates. Defoliation, relative water content and the starch concentration of needles were predictors of mortality in both species under drought and pathogen infection. Infection and drought stress create conflicting needs for carbon to compartmentalize the pathogen and to avoid turgor loss, respectively. Heterobasidion annosum reduces the functional sapwood area and shifts NSC allocation patterns, reducing the capacity of trees to cope with drought.Ministry of Science and Education of Spain; Svenska Forskningsradet Forma