Measuring agriculture and rural planning with
advanced methods
August 31 2015 - October 9 2015
Monitoring agriculture for market management and food security
October 9, 2015, European Union Pavilion (11 am - 7 pm)
Goals
Agricultural and agro-environmental monitoring, yield forecasting and early warning,
deforestation and land use/land cover monitoring, are critical for policy makers. Accurate,
timely and cost-effective approaches to these issues generally rely on the use of advanced
methods, remote sensing data, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Global
Positioning Systems (GPS). Moreover, upcoming satellites offer the possibility to improve
some applications. In this conference, advanced methods developed so far are discussed,
focusing on advantages, requirements and limitations.
Expected outcome
A wide audience will have an overview of the status of art for agricultural and agroenvironmental monitoring, yield forecasting and early warning, deforestation and land
use/land cover monitoring. Papers will have a solid scientific content, but will be presented
targeting non-specialist EXPO visitors. The audience will include researchers and students of
various disciplines related to food, agriculture and agro-environment, policy makers, public
officers, public and private donors, UN Organizations, NGOs, farmers organizations, food
industries, biofuel industries and other entrepreneurs for which timely and reliable
quantitative information concerning food and agriculture is essential (producers of
fertilizers, seeds, machinery for technical equipment, for packaging and so on).
Organisers
Paolo Pizziol – Institute for Environment and Sustainability, Joint Research Centre, European
Commission
Elisabetta Carfagna – Department of Statistical Sciences - Alma Mater Studiorum University
of Bologna
Welcome
11:00 am David Wilkinson - Commissioner General for EU participation to EXPO and Director of the JRC's Institute for
Environment and Sustainability 11:15 am Alma Mater Studiorum University of Bologna Chair: Neil Hubbard – Head of MARS Unit, Institute for
Environment and Sustainability, Joint Research Centre
11:30 am Opening - Paolo De Castro - S&D Coordinator, Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development of the
European Parliament 11:50 am Improving agricultural statistics for market management, food security and agro-environmental monitoring
- Giampiero Genovese – Head of Unit Agriculture and Life Sciences in the Economy, Joint Research Centre 12:10 am The MARS Crop Yield Forecasting System - Stefan Niemeyer - Leader AGRI4CAST Action, Joint Research Centre 12:30 am Monitoring land cover with GIS and remote sensing - John Latham - FAO
12:50 am Discussion
1:10 - 2:30 pm Lunch
2:30 - 3:00 pm Tour of EU pavilion
Chair: Elisabetta Carfagna – Full Professor of Statistics, University
of Bologna
3:00 pm Use of New Technologies for agricultural monitoring - Philippe Loudjani – Project Leader, Joint Research Centre 3:20 pm Statistical modelling of agricultural data in a world of big data - Giuseppe Arbia - Full Professor of Economic
Statistics, Cattolica University 3:40 pm Appropriate Survey Methods for Different Country Profiles - Key Challenges, Gaps and Remaining Methodological
Issues - Michael Steiner - Senior Mathematical Statistician, United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) 4:00 pm Combining different sampling frames for agricultural statistics - Cristiano Ferraz – Associate Professor of Statistics,
Federal University of Pernambuco and Fulvia Mecatti – Full Professor of Statistics, University of Milano Bicocca 4:20 pm Discussion
4:40 pm Coffee break
Chair: Giampiero Genovese – Head of Unit Agriculture and Life
Sciences in the Economy, Joint Research Centre
5:10 pm Disaggregating agricultural statistics by small area models - Monica Pratesi – Full Professor of Statistics, University
of Pisa and Alessandra Petrucci – Associate Professor of Statistics, University of Firenze
5:30 pm More efficient and accurate methods for using remote sensing - Roberto Benedetti – Full Professor of Economic
Statistics, University of Chieti-Pescara, Paolo Postiglione – University of Chieti-Pescara and Federica Piersimoni – Istat
5:50 pm Satellite images and crop area estimation: perspectives with new sensors - Javier Gallego - Statistician, Joint
Research Centre
6:10 pm Advanced methods for agricultural and agro-environmental monitoring - Emily Berg – Research Assistant
Professor, Iowa State University, Wayne Fuller, Sarah Nusser, and Zhengyuan Zhu – Iowa State University
6:30 - 7:00 pm General discussion and concluding remarks