Evaluation and registration of plant protection inputs for organic farming

Organic farmers may only use those plant protection products which are listed in Annex II B of the ‘Organic Regulation’ 2092/91 and also registered for use at national level. At present, new compounds may only be listed in Reg. 2092/91, if they do not come into direct contact with the crop (although in perennial crops, contact outside the growing season of the edible parts is possible), which is a major obstacle for progress. The EU-funded ORGANIC INPUTS EVALUATION project aims at making Reg. 2092/91 more flexible with regard to new products, while safeguarding the principles of organic farming. Registra-tion under the ‘Pesticide Directive’ 91/414 represents a considerable financial hurdle. The REBECA project will propose registration requirements which are better adapted for biological control agents, plant extracts and other low-risk products. The aim is to accelerate registration and make it more cost-effective, without compromises to the level of safety

Development of a framework for the design of minimum processing strategies which guarantee food quality and safety - Principles, concepts and recommendations for the future

Principles of processing of organic and ‘low input’ food have been analysed in the EU funded QLIF project. A literature survey showed that some of the principles are generally accepted (e.g. the use of certified organic ingredients, a certified production chain and minimal use of additives), others are shared broadly (e.g. more careful processing methods, naturalness) and some principles are in discussion mainly in the private sector (e.g. environmental management concepts, social requirements, regional focus). Recent studies showed that consumer associate organic food with the following dimensions/attributes: health, high quality, the use of natural raw materials, welfare orientated animal husbandry as well as environmentally friendly land use and processing techniques. The challenge will be to consider such wider consumer perceptions and expectations, in particular when revising the EU regulation No 2092/91 on organic food and farming. In the current draft for revised regulation, agreed generally by the EU Council on 19-20 December 2006, some of these elements are included, but not all. How detailed such aspects should be regulated in implementation rules is seen quite differentiated by processors and non-processors which were asked in a Delphi Survey, depending on the different areas. At the EU regulatory level, the top priority mentioned was the minimal use of additives, followed by minimal and careful processing. Quality/sensory aspects, however, were not seen as primary objectives at the EU level, because companies should have the chance to develop individual sensorial profiles for their products. However, regarding the minimum use of additives this is clearly perceived to be an EU level issue. There is also a tendency to prefer additives of certified organic origin, both among ‘processors’ as well as ‘non-processors’ points of view. The challenge in the future will be to develop regulations with the right balance between authenticity, health orientation and convenience to maintain the confidence of consumers and credibility of the products in the use minimum and careful processing strategies permitted under organic farming standards

Final project report: EEC 2092/91 (ORGANIC) Revision

This report summarises the findings of the project that have been presented in a number of separate reports and publications. In the Chapters 2 to 5 the approach, results and conclusions of the project are summarised, following the structure of the different work packages. Chapter 2 summarises the work on ethical values of organic agriculture. Chapter 3 looks at the differences in the implementation of Regulation (EEC) 2092/91 across Europe and compares the European Regulation with international standards. Chapters 4 and 5 summarise the findings that relate to reducing the dependency on non-organic inputs in the case of feed and seed. The final Chapter 6 consolidates the recommendations of the whole project arising from the various different work packages in one place. Recommendations are aimed in particular at the second stage of the ongoing revision process of the European Regulation, the transfer of the detailed rules from the Annexes of the Regulation (EEC) 2092/91 that is expected to start after the completion of the project. Further recommendations for standard setting bodies, regulators and research recommendations are also presented. The overall objective of the project was to provide recommendations for the revision and further development of the Regulation (EEC) 2092/91 and other standards for organic agriculture, broken down into a number of specific objectives that resulted in 12 seperate reports. The basic ethical values and value differences of organic agriculture in Europe was identified through stakeholder consultation (D 2.1) and through literature as part of developing a procedure for balancing and integrating the basic values in developments of EU regulation (D 2.3). Organic standards from national and private organisations in Europe were compared with the EU regulation with help of database (www.organicrules.org) and differences were analysed to give recommendations on further harmonisation of the EU regulation (D 3.2). The knowledge on how to achieve 100 % organic rations in diets for livestock was expanded through a meta-analysis of literature and an overview of the current situation to characterise the availability of protein sources for 100% organic diets for pigs and poultry was produced (D 4.1 part 1 and 2). Criteria for use of organic inputs, evaluation criteria for Annex II C: Feed materials and Annex II D: Dietary supplements of Regulation (EEC) 2092/91 were developed (D. 4.2). A guide for operators was developed (D 4.3). The knowledge on how to reduce the use of non-organic seed and vegetative propagation materials was improved through reports on seed borne diseases in organic seed and propagation material (D 5.1), on the importance of quality characterising in organic seed and propagation material (D 5.2) and analysis of national derogation regimes (D 5.3). The project produced 12 reports, 7 scientific publications in peer-reviewed journals, and a project web-page at www.organic-revision.org where all reports and further documents are available. It organised 3 workshops with stakeholders and had ongoing communication with the Unit on Organic Farming in DG Agriculture responsible for the Organic Regulation. Members of the team produced in total more than 250 dissemination items

Automatic sets of rational numbers

The notion of a k-automatic set of integers is well-studied. We develop a new notion - the k-automatic set of rational numbers - and prove basic properties of these sets, including closure properties and decidability.Comment: Previous version appeared in Proc. LATA 2012 conferenc

Organic Farming Research Support and Research Priorities in the European Union

Support for Organic Farming focused research has increased significantly in successive EU research funding frameworks. This is in line with constantly increasing consumer demand for organic foods over the last 20 years, which has accelerated again over the last 2 years in many European countries, including new member states. Under the 7th Framework Programme (FP7), the expected new increase of funds for organic farming could significantly decrease, even below the levels made available under the 5th Framework Programme (FP5). Most of the project topics listed focus on the development of methods for economic analyses of Organic Farming and/or follow a very “reductionist” one problem - one potential solution approach. On the other side, as there is no clear instruments to establish priorities in research programmes at European level. The IFOAM EU Group has developed a consultation process to set organic farming sector priorities, which could be used as a model to set research priorities in the future. This paper also presents a first assessment of the EU support to organic farming research, reviewing main achievements in organic food production systems research and proposing some changes in the current 7th Framework Programme

Satellite-to-satellite system and orbital error estimates

Satellite-to-satellite tracking and orbit computation accuracy is evaluated on the basis of data obtained from near earth spacecraft via the geostationary ATS-6. The near earth spacecraft involved are Apollo-Soyuz, GEOS-3, and NIMBUS-6. In addition ATS-6 is being tracked by a new scheme wherein a single ground transmitter interrogates several ground based transponders via ATS-6 to achieve the precision geostationary orbits essential in satellite-to-satellite orbit computation. Also one way Doppler data is being recorded aboard NIMBUS-6 to determine the position of meteorological platforms. Accuracy assessments associated with the foregoing mission related experiments are discussed

Orbit determination accuracies using satellite-to-satellite tracking

The uncertainty in relay satellite sate is a significant error source which cannot be ignored in the reduction of satellite-to-satellite tracking data. Based on simulations and real data reductions, it is numerically impractical to use simultaneous unconstrained solutions to determine both relay and user satellite epoch states. A Bayesian or least squares estimation technique with an a priori procedure is presented which permits the adjustment of relay satellite epoch state in the reduction of satellite-to-satellite tracking data without the numerical difficulties introduced by an ill-conditioned normal matrix

Geoadditive Regression Modeling of Stream Biological Condition

Indices of biotic integrity (IBI) have become an established tool to quantify the condition of small non-tidal streams and their watersheds. To investigate the effects of watershed characteristics on stream biological condition, we present a new technique for regressing IBIs on watershed-specific explanatory variables. Since IBIs are typically evaluated on anordinal scale, our method is based on the proportional odds model for ordinal outcomes. To avoid overfitting, we do not use classical maximum likelihood estimation but a component-wise functional gradient boosting approach. Because component-wise gradient boosting has an intrinsic mechanism for variable selection and model choice, determinants of biotic integrity can be identified. In addition, the method offers a relatively simple way to account for spatial correlation in ecological data. An analysis of the Maryland Biological Streams Survey shows that nonlinear effects of predictor variables on stream condition can be quantified while, in addition, accurate predictions of biological condition at unsurveyed locations are obtained

The role of long waves in the stability of the plane wake

This work is directed towards investigating the fate of three-dimensional long perturbation waves in a plane incompressible wake. The analysis is posed as an initial-value problem in space. More specifically, input is made at an initial location in the downstream direction and then tracing the resulting behavior further downstream subject to the restriction of finite kinetic energy. This presentation follows the outline given by Criminale and Drazin [Stud. in Applied Math. \textbf{83}, 123 (1990)] that describes the system in terms of perturbation vorticity and velocity. The analysis is based on large scale waves and expansions using multi scales and multi times for the partial differential equations. The multiscaling is based on an approach where the small parameter is linked to the perturbation property independently from the flow control parameter. Solutions of the perturbative equations are determined numerically after the introduction of a regular perturbation scheme analytically deduced up to the second order. Numerically, the complete linear system is also integrated. Since the results relevant to the complete problem are in very good agreement with the results of the first order analysis, the numerical solution at the second order was deemed not necessary. The use for an arbitrary initial-value problem will be shown to contain a wealth of information for the different transient behaviors associated to the symmetry, angle of obliquity and spatial decay of the long waves. The amplification factor of transversal perturbations never presents the trend - a growth followed by a long damping - usually seen in waves with wavenumber of order one or less. Asymptotical instability is always observed.Comment: accepted Physical Review E, March 201