Artificial intelligence makes digital agriculture accessible for farmers
‘Artificial Intelligence Supported Digital Agriculture Project’, in which artificial intelligence and Industry 4.0 technologies are also used; is supported by KOSGEB. The project is being tested in the eastern and southeastern cities, especially in Malatya, Batman and Diyarbakır, in greenhouses and open fields.
With the ‘Artificial Intelligence Supported Digital Agriculture Project’, which was successfully completed by the academicians of Dicle University, an uninterrupted flow of information is provided by transmitting soil, weather and climate information from open and greenhouse agricultural areas to the smartphone via sensors. Thanks to the high resolution cameras, the images related to the product are processed with artificial intelligence image processing techniques, and disease detection, as well as yield estimation are made. In addition, the large data obtained is processed with artificial intelligence techniques, and autonomous irrigation, fertilization and spraying are carried out.
Sagtek Bilişim contributes to the economy by developing software
Operating within Dicle Teknokent, Sagtek Bilişim was founded in 2013 by a consortium of academics. By developing software in the field of artificial intelligence and its applications, it contributed to the economy with domestic production. R&D projects with artificial intelligence system that the company has successfully completed; it is used in healthcare, autonomous vehicle, power generation and agriculture sectors. With the application of artificial intelligence, which has the feature of determining the needs of cultivated products in agricultural areas such as temperature, humidity, light and water level; it was aimed to increase the quantity and quality of the product produced by enabling the producer to make the necessary intervention in a timely manner, and to minimize labor, water, fertilizer, pesticide and similar costs. The project was carried out with the focus on reducing cost inputs by maximizing productivity in agriculture by using technologies of the next century such as Industry 4.0 technologies and the internet of things, and started to be tested in both greenhouses and open field in the Eastern and Southeastern cities, especially in Malatya, Batman and Diyarbakır. Thanks to the system, data on all processes of the product were monitored instantly and autonomously intervened. For example, water wastage was prevented by measuring the water stress level of the plant and irrigating at the right rate. The system is also of critical importance in terms of fighting drought and efficient use of water resources.
Main mission of Dicle Teknokent: Digital agriculture technologies
Sagtek Bilişim company representative Dr. Yasin Sönmez said that according to the data of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, there is a total of 752 thousand decares of greenhouse area in our country, which ranks 4th in the world especially in out-of-season agricultural production, and expressed that: “Only 13 thousand decares of these areas are modern greenhouses. By keeping the product, which is the output of this project, at an accessible cost level, we enabled our farmers to practice modern digital agriculture. Thanks to this project, which is the first application of digital agriculture technologies, which is the main mission of Dicle Teknokent, producers will be able to use this technology with domestic production and a national solution, at an affordable price. Depending on the width and structure of the land, the product, which will be sold at a price of between 3 – 30 thousand TL, has also been brought to an exportable level. Negotiations with buyers abroad continue. We aim to contribute to the country’s economy by exporting this system. We would like to thank KOSGEB for their support, which made it possible for us to make this contribution to our country and the world by realizing our project. We have seen once again that the outputs of the projects supported within the scope of R&D provide input to our economy as products with high added value.”
