Ragusa is a lovely town situated in the south east of the greatest Island of the Mediterranean sea and Ibla, the ancient  town, is known for its Baroque architecture. At Ibla is located the Tropical and Subtropical Agricultural Degree which is part of the Agricultural Faculty of the University of Catania. The Conference follows the great events represented by the Int. Conf. on Innovation Technology to Empower Safety, Health and Welfare in Agriculture and Agro-food Systems, (Ragusa, Sept. 15th to 17th 2008).

On that occasion we claimed you can take in account South East of Sicily as a sort of a great and complete laboratory concerning agricultural activities because here there are many different kind of cultivations, agro – industries, packing houses, wineries, dairies, nurseries and so on. Also, some wide areas are covered by greenhouses and inside them  we can find a great variability of crop.

Despite the continuous scientific and technical progress in safety and in accident prevention, people involving in agriculture and agro-food activities that are victims of an accident or occupational disease are increasing. This could means that more and new efforts has to be done and new methodologies or approaches has to be developed. Researchers reckon with Human factors and Stress correlated diseases, otherwise their effort risk to ignore essential components of accident at work. Also, new social behaviour, as sleep hours reduction in the week end can influence on safety..


In this context physician, engineers, agronomists, ergonomists and other experts, academics or practitioners, must carry out some researchers together with the aim to improve Safety, Health, Welfare in Agricultural and Agro-food Systems and in involved people.

Moreover, since a great part of the local economy is based on milk cow farming, it would be a good idea to include in the Conference a topic about animal welfare and milking parlour, as we did in 2008.

Greenhouses are widespread in the area; consequently, themes such as air pollution and workers contamination during pesticides spreading have to be strongly investigated. Some researchers age going towards a strategy based on  “risk zero” by using robot or a remote controlled vehicle. In the meantime, assistive technologies are very important too.

In Sept. 15th, a day - conference devoted to Safety And Health in Greenhouses promoted by the Accademia dei Georgofili will precede the Int. Conference.  We invite you to take part  at the Day - Conference!
 

Finally, we hope you will wish to be with us at RagusaSHWA2010 with the aim to present the results of your precious researches and to join with us the splendours of our Mediterranean Isle.