CRC Press Modeling for Sustainable Management in Agriculture, Food and the Environment

Recent developments in computer science, data mining and big data analytics have resulted in new operational frameworks in agriculture, food and the environment, which in fact, share a strong link between them. A key challenge for researchers is to extract new data patterns and utilize them in decision making. Managers, policy makers, and practitioners have to be aware of these methodologies, in order to establish efficient and effective working groups for the tasks to be resolved. The book reviews the complexity in the interrelationship between agriculture, food production and processing, and environmental issues. It also highlights the prospects of modelling in various cases of problems solving in these sectors, and reviews the new and future challenges. Consumer awareness in food production and processing practices, is continually increasing and the necessity for advanced behavioural tools follows the same trend. Furthermore, the value chain management challenge is becoming one of the most crucial tasks due to the increased importance of new parameters like the origin of products, its environmental footprint the enhancement of local production, etc. The book addresses these topics in a holistic approach, merging modelling with advanced marketing practices in a coherent and innovative manner, being an effective tool in a continuously demanding world. About the Author George Vlontzos is an Assistant Professor, Director of the Laboratory of Agricultural Economics and Consumer Behaviour. His research interests focus on, among others, economic and environmental efficiency assessment, and on consumer behaviour characteristics for agricultural inputs and foodstuff. For this various models are being implemented like Data Envelopment Analysis, Stochastic Frontier, Artificial Neural Networks, the Theory of Planned Behaviour, the Health Belief Model, etc. He has published several papers in journals under double blind peer review evaluation and participated in international congresses and seminars. Finally, he has participated, among others, in 4 competitive projects co-financed by the EU. His paper entitled "To eat or not to eat? The case of genetically modified (GM) food" has won the 2017 Highly Commended Award of the Nutrition and Food Science journal, published by Emerald Publishing. He is a member of the editorial board of the International Journal of Sustainable Agricultural Management and Informatics published by Inderscience Publishers. He is also a member of the board of the Hellenic Agricultural Economics Society and the Hellenic Association for Information and Communication Technologies in Agriculture, Food and Environment. Yiannis Ampatzidis is an agricultural engineer and an Assistant Professor in the Agricultural and Biological Engineering Department of University of Florida. He is located in the Southwest Florida Research and Education Center (SWFREC), Immokalee, Florida. He works in the area of mechanization and automation of specialty crop production, focusing on the design, development, and testing of sensors and control systems for optimal management of inputs, resources and products. His current research focus is on mechatronics, precision agriculture, smart machines, machine vision, artificial intelligence, automation, robotics, UAVs, and machine systems with special interest in development, implementation and evaluation of agricultural machines and control systems for high value crops. Basil Manos is a full Professor of the Department of Agricultural Economics at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. His research interests are in farm management and regional planning, environmental management, impact assessment, sustainability and efficiency. He has studied mathematics, economics, operational research and agricultural economics in Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and London School of Economics. He has conducted research in many national and European funded project