Awareness and adoption of precision agriculture in the Cukurova region of Turkey
Department of Biosystems Engineering, Faculty of Agriculture, Mustafa Kemal University, TR 31040 Antakya, Hatay, Turkey
*Correspondence: keskin@mku.edu.tr, mkeskinhatay@gmail.com
Abstract:
Adoption of precision agriculture (PA) technologies has an increasing trend in developed countries. However, it is not well known in developing countries including Turkey. No study was reported on the awareness of PA in Turkey before. The objectives of this study were to assess the awareness of PA in the Cukurova region of Turkey using an interview survey study and also to briefly inform each survey participant about these technologies. The study was conducted with 164 participants that were agricultural engineers, farm equipment dealers and farmers. 90.2% of all participants reported that they followed new trends in agriculture. However, 51.8% of all participants indicated that they did not hear the term ‘PA’ before. Only 29.3% of the participants who heard the term ‘PA’ knew its concept. Internet was the most important means to gather information on new technologies. Most three well-known technologies by all participants were satellite positioning (GPS) (81.7%), geographical information systems (GIS) (69.5%) and remote sensing (61.0%) as the least known two ones were variable rate application (33.5%) and soil sampling and mapping (34.8%). In addition, a training brochure was handed out to each participant and the PA technologies were explained. 97.6% of the participants expressed that these technologies would be somehow beneficial for agriculture in Turkey. 88.4% of the participants wanted to get more detailed training on these technologies. Also, information on recent developments in the adoption of PA technologies is included in the paper.
Key words:
adoption, awareness, Cukurova Region, Precision agriculture (PA), survey, Turkey