Future of Agriculture Lies In Digitalisation

Ali Ekber Yıldırım, Agricultural Columnist at Dünya Newspaper

The world is talking about reducing chemicals like agricultural pesticides and manure in order to produce reliable and healthy food.

Technology use and digitalisation started spreading in every aspect of life. In fact, concepts such as smart agriculture, agriculture 4.0, digital agriculture, sensors, drones, unmanned air vehicles, robots, satellites, and remote sensing systems have become a part of our daily lives.

Technology Use in Agriculture Is Increasing

Technoparks, information technologies companies, agricultural research institutions, universities, the private sector, and state institutions have been working to increase the use of technology in agriculture. As the result of these efforts, the commonly used agriculture and animal husbandry methods in our country are weather forecast, humidity and temperature control, crop detection with remote sensing, sensor and drone use, spraying, fertilisation and irrigation technologies, storage, pedometers, milking robots, poultry, and fish farms monitoring.

In addition to all these methods, the importance of digitalisation in agriculture and food has increased even more after COVID-19. Only yesterday, we were talking about “increasing the current food production at least 50% by 2050 to feed the world population,” and thinking about development targets accordingly. But today, it is said that at least 55 countries will experience famine and hunger risks due to coronavirus.

What Is the Status of Costs and Productivity?

The world is talking about reducing chemicals like agricultural pesticide and manure in order to produce reliable and healthy food. On the other hand, productivity is another point to increase in order to feed the world population. Hence, there is a search for decreasing high production costs.   Two of the most important issues in agriculture are high costs and low productivity in Turkey. And digitalisation gains more importance in solving these problems.

With the coronavirus, lockdowns, travel restrictions, and quarantines have shown the digitalisation need in agriculture. Factors such as rural populations getting older, labour power getting weaker and the problem of finding workers are other proofs of the digitalisation need in agriculture.

Where Is Turkey at Agricultural Digitalisation?

Digitalisation efforts in agriculture started to intensify in 2000s. Extensive projects of the T.R. Ministry of Agriculture such as “Agricultural Sector Integrated Management Information System (TARSEY)” and “Agricultural Monitoring and Information System (TARBİL)” became the hopes for digitalisation. And T.R. Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry declared 2020 as the year of “digitalisation in agriculture”. “Digital Agricultural Market (DİTAP)” was another step of this journey.

However, one of the most important issues in agriculture both in Turkey and abroad is the aging population. The problem is also reflected in the use of technology. The old and traditionalist population knows production, agriculture, and the environment. And the young population knows technology but not so much about agriculture. In short, technology and digitalisation will shape the future of agriculture. If the agricultural policies to be applied can bring these two groups together, Turkey will inevitably have a breakthrough in agriculture.