Mathematics in Agriculture and the Impact on Health
G. C. Wake (Centre for Mathematics in Industry, Massey University, New Zealand)
Agriculture is one of humankind's oldest activities. The science of Agriculture has hardly been touched by mathematics compared to most other sciences. Where it has done so, it has achieved enormous gains in productivity, efficiency and environmental sustainability. In New Zealand, where the major industries are based in "land-use" activities it has been very valuable to bring the problem-solving power of mathematics to work, making the Industry one of the best and efficient in the world, albeit aided by a very favourable climate. In this mini-symposium speakers will illustrate the use of mathematics in agriculture, horticulture, and forestry etc, through a number of modelling case studies. These will include pasture and nutrient uptake, food-safety, disease including its transmission to humans. This has been illustrated graphically recently in various` parts of the world. The speakers are a team of people from three countries, all of whom have contributed to the advance of Agriculture in their respective countries and internationally. These inevitably involve dynamical systems models. In many cases these frequently give rise to original new mathematics, which would not arise otherwise. For example, Differential-Delay DE models are not well-developed in the literature.