Farmers’ Experiences with GNSS-Based Tractor Auto Guidance in Adana Province of Turkey

Yıl 2018, , 172 - 181, 29.08.2018

Muharrem Keskin Yunus Emre Şekerli Sait Muharrem Say Mustafa Topçueri

https://doi.org/10.13002/jafag4421

Cited By: 3

Öz

Auto Guidance (AG) systems offer many advantages for farmers including more accuracy, more efficiency and agricultural input savings. The adoption of AG systems is increasing in many countries. Also, their adoption rate is rising in Adana province and in other regions of Turkey. The aim of this study was to assess the experiences and satisfactions of 55 out of about 110 farmers who used AG systems in Adana using face-to-face interviews. A large portion of the farmers (34.5%) had a land area of 200-300 ha followed by 50-100 ha (23.6%). The most common (49.1%) GNSS signal correction method was RTK + CORS + GSM which requires annual subscription fee. Participant farmers used the AG system mostly in tillage (98.2%) followed by planting (47.3%) and fertilization (29.1%). Most of the problems (83.3%) they faced were related to hardware. The biggest benefits provided by the system were creating straight soil ridges (98.2%), flexible working hours (92.7%), time-savings (80.0%), fuel savings (80.0%) and labor savings (50.9%). The majority of the users were "Very satisfied" (81.8%) and "Satisfied" (16.4%) with the system. However, 96.4% of them did not use other Precision Agriculture (PA) technologies and the greatest reason (54.5%) was that they did not have any knowledge about them; thus, farmers need training on other PA technologies.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Auto guidance, precision agriculture, survey, Adana, Turkey

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