Ankara, Turkey - The 'Support to Develop National E-Agriculture Strategy' project was initiated with a workshop held in Ankara on Monday, 4 November. The project will be conducted by partnership of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry.

The E-Agriculture Strategy project is aimed at supporting the formulation of Turkey's National E-Agriculture Strategy, identifying the current use of information and communications technology in agriculture, and increasing Turkey's awareness and capacity regarding E-agriculture.

E-Agriculture includes the design, development, and implementation of innovative methods for the use of information and communications technology particularly in agriculture, fishery, forestry, stockbreeding, and rural areas.

The aim is to support agricultural and rural development by increasing the access of people, who derive their livelihoods from agriculture, to important information which will help them make the best possible decisions and use available resources in the most efficient and sustainable way.

The information and communications technology used in e-agriculture includes devices, networks, services, and applications. Many technologies fall within this scope, including internet-based advanced technologies, radio, phone, cell phone, television, and satellite.

The kickoff workshop started with the opening remarks of FAO's Subregional Coordinator for Central Asia and FAO Representative for Turkey Viorel Gutu. Gutu emphasized the challenge of defining the word E-Agriculture. He underlined that everyone knows what computer, software, or internet infrastructure are for, but the question is how to adapt all these technologies to daily practices of agriculture in Turkey. He then spoke about how a national strategy to be developed as part of the project will help the agricultural sector.

Opening remarks continued with the speech of Director-General of Agricultural Research and Policies Özkan Kayacan. Kayacan stated that the sustainable increase of production and productivity is only possible by means of integrating high technology into the agricultural sector. He added:

“As you know, we near completion of the R&D works of the electric tractor, which we have developed using our domestic resources. Besides, we recently formed the ''Agricultural Mechanization and Information Technology Research Group''. We also plan to establish a ''Smart Agriculture Institute'' soon, which will follow technological advances in the world and develop smart agriculture solutions in cooperation with the private sector.”

Sophie Treinen, Information and Knowledge Management Officer at FAO's Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia, emphasized important questions regarding E-agriculture in her speech.

“I ask the following questions while checking digital technologies used in rural areas:

Is it available?

Is it accessible?

Is it affordable?

Is it convenient?

Is it adaptable?

Does the user have necessary skills to use and control this technology?''

These little questions gain more importance if we do not want to exclude anyone; family farmers, men, women, or young generations. Do digital technologies meet the needs in an affordable way? Is it possible to make the technologies used by large farmers available for small farmers? These are important points in developing a national e-agriculture strategy.”

The workshop continued with discussions on digitalization of the public sector, E-agriculture practices in the private sector, and panels on E-agriculture and R&D.