Digital Agriculture Boosts Efficiency by 40%

Digital Farming Increases Yield by 40 Percent Tat Gıda is leading the development of industrial tomato farming in Turkey. Through its investments in digital technologies, Tat Gıda works alongside farmers to bring tomato production in the country up to international standards and make it sustainable. Tat Gıda, which has invested over TRY 7.5 million in smart farming technologies over the past three years, conducts production using advanced digital applications on approximately 2,500 decares of land annually. Leading the sector in providing training for farmer development and strengthening, Tat Gıda aims to increase production efficiency through the widespread adoption of digital farming applications and support the future of agriculture. The company supports tomato producers in creating monitoring and record-keeping systems to establish relationships between field data and product performance using digital technologies. Hakan Turan, Deputy General Manager of Tat Gıda, emphasized that due to the climate crisis and drought increasingly felt in recent years, the importance of more efficient production with fewer resources has grown, and the solution lies in science-based digital farming. Turan stated: "We conduct tomato farming with digital farming applications on approximately 2,500 decares of land annually. With science-based digital farming, we achieve highly successful results. Through these applications and best practices, we serve as role models for farmers. With our young and dynamic agricultural team, we continuously work on new applications in the field. The fundamental purpose of our agricultural work in this area is to increase yield through the modern farming techniques we apply and share these experiences with our contract farmers."

Costs Down, Yields Up

Hakan Turan, Deputy General Manager of Tat Gıda, stated that they are leading the adoption and widespread use of digital technologies in agriculture and the development of industrial tomato farming, adding that they have begun producing tomatoes using the "Digital Farm Field" concept for this purpose. Turan said: "In 2019 and 2020, we expanded the application area and used digital farming solutions and applications on approximately 2,500 decares. In the Bursa Karacabey basin, traditional farming methods yielded an average of 7-8 tons per decare, while in the Tat Digital Farm Field, with the help of digital solutions and good farming practices, we achieved yields of 10-11 tons per decare. This is at the level of results seen in the California region, where the best examples in tomato farming are found. With the increase in yield per decare, we see that the cultivation cost per tomato is lower than the regional average at around 30 percent. We know that digital farming is a necessity. We are all now aware of how important agriculture is for the world's future; we are obliged to invest in agricultural sustainability to reduce resource consumption such as fertilizer, water and chemicals and zero out our carbon footprint," he said. Noting that farmers are becoming increasingly conscious of this issue as time progresses, Turan continued: "As Tat Gıda, we are pleased to contribute to our producers achieving successful results on the cost-efficiency-sustainability axis by sharing our experiences with them."

Fourth Digital Farm Field Day Held

Turan noted that in this year's 'Digital Farm Field Day', which Tat Gıda organized for the fourth time, they met with farmers and had the opportunity to share the projects and investments they developed for them. Hakan Turan, Deputy General Manager of Tat Gıda, said: "In addition to these meetings, with our Tat Leader Farmer mobile application, we have the ability to stay in continuous contact with our farmers. Thanks to the mobile application, we can provide advance information to our farmers, analyze the development of their fields and plant health with satellite imagery, and share this information with our farmers free of charge through the application along with the comments and guidance of our agricultural engineers. With digital soil analysis, we can get results within minutes, we provide efficient field use and fuel savings with auto-steering tractors, we can monitor moisture with sensors and achieve water savings this way," he said.

TRY 11 Million Investment Planned

Turan states that the level reached in digital farming applications today is world-class. Expressing that they will continue to invest in digital farming with a more strategic agenda in the coming years, Turan said: "We plan for large-scale data collection, decision support systems and mechanization to be our priority investment areas. We will continue to share the learning we will gain from this with our farmers and provide support for them to achieve more efficient production. We have an investment plan of TRY 11 million for next year for mechanization and new digital investments. As Tat Gıda, we have much more exciting projects in this area in the period ahead, and we truly believe in this vision. Our aim is not to compete with our farmers but to be a role model," he concluded.