Systems Approaches for Sustainable Agricultural Development:
Methodologies for Interdisciplinary, Multiple Scale Perspectives
The Third International Symposium on Systems Approaches for Agricultural
Development (SAAD-III)
Date: November 8-10, 1999
Venue: National Agrarian University of La Molina (UNALM), Lima, Peru
Organized by:
International Consortium for Agricultural Systems Applications (ICASA)
International Potato Center (CIP)
National Agrarian University of La Molina (UNALM)
SAAD-III Announcement
The Third International Symposium on Systems Approaches for Agricultural
Development (SAAD-III) will be held November 8-10, 1999, in Lima, Peru, at
the National Agrarian University of La Molina. The title of the symposium is
"Systems Approaches for Sustainable Agricultural Development: Methodologies
for Interdisciplinary, Multiple Scale Perspectives". An important theme to
be addressed during the symposium is: "Operationalizing ecoregionality: a
critical review of multiple scale and interdisciplinary approaches in
advanced ecoregional efforts".
SAAD Symposiums
The Systems Approaches for Agricultural Development (SAAD) symposiums
provide a forum for an international audience to present, discuss, and
exchange information on methodologies used across disciplines and at
multiple scales to obtain a more integrated understanding of agricultural
systems. Papers presented at the first two SAAD symposiums have been
published in the journal Agricultural Systems and in the Kluwer Academic
Publishers book series entitled Systems Approaches for Sustainable
Agricultural Development.
The first SAAD symposium was held at the Asian Institute of Technology
(AIT), Bangkok, Thailand, in December 1991. It brought together more than
150 scientists and senior research leaders from 20 countries. Oral and
poster presentations illustrated how systems research and some of its tools,
e.g., simulation models, have been used to analyze constraints to
agricultural production, to define interactions at the farm and regional
levels, and to improve education, training and technology transfer.
The second SAAD symposium was held at the International Rice Research
Institute (IRRI), Los Baņos, The Philippines, in December 1995. With more
than 200 participants from 32 countries, this symposium fostered the link
between the biophysical and social sciences for dealing with complex issues
at different scales. More than 60 papers were published with a focus on
understanding system components and their interactions at the field, farm,
and regional levels.
The SAAD-III Program
Many research organizations are implementing an ecoregional approach to
address both the sustainable management of natural resources and the
sustainable improvement in agricultural productivity. Generally, an
ecoregional approach is one that integrates across disciplines, recognizing
that social, economic, and biophysical factors all interact and often affect
sustainability in different ways at different scales. An ecoregion may be
defined as an area sharing certain natural and socioeconomic
characteristics, which may coincide with administrative boundaries.
Alternative terminology sometimes used is "resource management domain",
which defines an area where particular interventions can be expected to have
similar impacts.
Systems research approaches, methods, and tools have become important assets
for ecoregional projects around the world. For that reason, a major goal of
SAAD-III is to provide an opportunity to critically review interdisciplinary
and multiple scale approaches being employed in several ecoregional
projects. This will be done in a one-day session where at least four
ecoregional efforts will be analyzed in depth.
The remaining two days of the SAAD-III program will focus on advances in
systems research at the field, farm, and regional levels, advances in
computer-based tools, and advances in education and training. Although
earlier SAAD symposiums have mostly emphasized modeling of soil and plant
systems, SAAD-III will be structured to encourage more presentation of
efforts to model animal production systems.
Call for Posters and Papers
Abstracts of contributions volunteered as oral or poster presentations need
to be submitted to [log in to unmask] by April 1, 1999. Authors of papers that
are accepted must then submit their full paper by September 1, 1999. A prize
will be awarded to the three best poster presentations as judged by the
participants.
Guidelines for Abstracts
Abstracts should be no more than 200 words. Please submit the text of the
abstract to [log in to unmask], including the name, institution, and Email
address of the corresponding author, the name and institution of any other
authors, and whether there is a preference for an oral or poster
presentation.
Registration (if registration after October 1, 1999, add $50.00 to each
category)
Registration fees will be assessed as follows (US dollars):
Participants who are authors or coauthors of a paper or poster: $ 150.00*
Participants who are not presenting a paper or poster: $ 250.00*
University students: $
50.00
*Includes a printed copy of the published proceedings.
More details will soon be provided regarding registration and payment of
fees.
Official Languages
All abstracts, papers, and poster contributions should be written in
English. To facilitate communication during plenary sessions, oral
presentations will be simultaneously translated into Spanish.
NB: A WEB page with updated information on program content and registration
will soon be available at http://www.cgiar.com/cip/ and
http://agrss.sherman.hawaii.edu/icasa/.
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