ISTANBUL, Dec 12 (AA/APP): Achieving high yields with limited resource use in agriculture and livestock farming is one of humanity’s fundamental needs, the head of Türkiye’s Agricultural Technologies Cluster (TUME), Abdulkadir Karagoz, said on Friday, adding that Türkiye’s own engineers are developing these technologies indigenously.
Speaking at the Take Off Türkiye Startup Summit, Karagoz stressed that Türkiye’s journey over the last decade, which has developed capabilities in engineering, self-confidence, and human resources through the National Technology Move, is now beginning to have an impact on civilian technologies.
The two-day summit, which began on Wednesday and featured Anadolu as its global communications partner, was held at the Istanbul Expo Center by the Turkish Technology Team Foundation (T3 Foundation), the Industry and Technology Ministry, and the Investment and Finance Office.
“When you don’t produce defense or agricultural technologies, your dependency grows instead of your capabilities,” he said, noting that, therefore, Türkiye has been developing its technological capabilities over the past 10 years and has now reached the stage of expanding this into other areas.
“We have launched a section on agricultural technologies at TEKNOFEST (Türkiye’s major technology event) this year, and we invited our partners, various universities, and start-ups,” he pointed out.
These technologies are now being developed indigenously in Türkiye with local sources by Turkish people, he said, adding: “We are actually trying to bring together those who develop this technology under one cluster.”
Regarding new technologies in agriculture and livestock fields in Türkiye, he said that many farms across the country are now using autonomous technologies for a variety of tasks, such as monitoring or milking cows, and productivity is significantly increasing.
Karagoz went on to say that TUME is now looking for thousands of young people who want to work in agricultural and livestock production using new technologies, and that the organization will help them by training them and finding financial resources, such as investors.