*This is the third in a series of blog posts published as part of the author’s ongoing research.
Cevdet Bulut | PhD Candidate | School of Business Management, Royal Holloway, University of London
Returning to Türkiye, I embarked on a journey to explore the evolving landscape of agriculture, an industry integral to the livelihoods of many including my own parents for many years, comprising 17% of the country’s employment as of 2021. My research trip starts in Bursa, where I grew up, revealed a stark transformation from agricultural lands to burgeoning urbanisation in my local neighbourhood, leaving farmers to adapt to new roles as builders and traders while their children sought opportunities elsewhere.
At Uludağ University, I found myself amidst a passionate discussion during a group interview hosted by Professor Kemal Sulhi Gündoğdu, Professor of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering. “If it wasn’t for the [covid] pandemic, they wouldn’t think of agriculture… Government support has just started. They are just waking up…,” says Celil Serhan Tezcan, the visionary founder and CEO of Tarsens and Yieldestimator, highlighting the uphill battle, citing years of neglect and ignorance regarding agricultural policies.
The renewed focus on digital transformation in agriculture stems from escalating food prices, prompting the government’s involvement. However, Prof. Gündoğdu stressed the need for private sector leadership in smart agriculture initiatives. He asserted that initiatives driven by government-owned entities often suffer from a “civil servant mentality” lacking the agility required for success on the ground. Nevertheless, it may not be easy for the private sector either, particularly within an innovation ecosystem that is still in its early stages. “Since the ecosystem has not been formed, everything is new,” says Prof. Gündoğdu. “The fact that Türkiye does not have an agricultural policy. All these are down to the individual efforts,” adds Mustafa Cem Aldağ, co-founder of Yieldestimator.
Tarsens, founded by Tezcan during his PhD under the supervision of Prof. Gündoğdu who later became a collaborator building the product by working on the sense-making of data coming from sensor network. The flagship product is called Yieldestimator (a spin-off from Tarsens today), a groundbreaking product for pre-harvest yield estimation in vineyards. Despite success abroad, Tezcan noted the struggle for acceptance in the Turkish market, attributing it to a lack of understanding and skills among local farmers.
Serdar Dikbaş, a smart agriculture evangelist, highlighted the unique challenge of engaging farmers.
“Unfortunately, farmers differ from other customer groups. They comprehend through touch, firsthand experience, and a deep understanding of their surroundings. The farmer’s perception is intertwined with their visual observations. Unlike relying solely on the intellect, the farmer processes information through their own eyes. It is imperative to provide evidence, and they must witness it firsthand.”
Probably, that’s why “farmer needs to see a demonstration somewhere,” Prof. Gündoğdu adds, indicating that farmers are risk-averse by nature.
“Soil fertility analysis was conducted on a farm in Mustafakemalpaşa [District of Bursa]. After identifying the fertilization requirements for the field, we proposed an appropriate fertilization plan. The farmer responded, saying, ‘This is the amount of fertilizer I will apply. Please ensure it is not less than that. Apply it on top, but not below. I cannot take the risk.’”
According to Dikbaş, the problem is more than that and has a deeper socio-economic aspect to it.
“The primary obstacle here is the prevalence of numerous small family farmers. In essence, the number of agricultural plots per farmer is exceedingly small in terms of units. The major contributing factor to this situation lies in an inheritance law established many years ago. According to the inheritance law in our country, lands can be subdivided without restriction. Presently, this has now been blocked. The land cannot be divided further, but unfortunately, it is too late to rectify the situation.”
Under the current circumstances, “cheap hybrid solutions” are only “realistic” option for a wider adoption, according to Dikbaş, proposing “datactor” – a fusion of tractor and IoT, considering the high tractor ownership in the country.
The final leg of my journey led me to Doktar Technologies, situated in Istanbul Technical University’s science park. This is one of many science parks spread across the country which have been at the forefront of tech innovation ecosystem, providing numerous advantages to startups, including financial incentives and proximity to a talent pool.
Doktar’s Tanzer Bilgen is the first founder with no family background in agriculture that I am interviewing. He was introduced to agriculture while working as a management consultant in the industry, for a client that produces French fries and frozen food. “Their profitability was low. Events in the field were reported with an accuracy of 30%, and only after a delay of 2 weeks. There was no comprehensive overview,” says Bilgen, recognising the gap and the value of capturing data in real-time. This would later serve as the foundation of company’s business model that he calls “Connected Farm” for automating data collection from the field.
The key differentiator to competitor offerings is Doktar’s portfolio management use case. “We add another layer on top of data collection. For instance, we can group thousands of fields. So, if I am a contractual agricultural company with 10 agricultural engineers and 500 farmers, the question arises: which farmers should I visit? With sensors deployed in the fields, we monitor them via satellite, providing data on various factors, such as the number of insects. This enables us to gain a deeper insight into the field, allowing for more informed decision-making and enabling prioritisation,” Bilgen elaborates.
Doktar primarily targets large food producers engaged in contract farming, seeing them as “early adopters”. Bilgen identified small farmers as “slow adapters” projecting it would take around eight years for widespread IoT adoption in this segment.
“We do not engage with individual farmers because there is currently no viable business case for such outreach. It is not sustainable, and it would result in financial losses. Companies that attempted similar approaches in America and elsewhere ultimately went bankrupt, squandering millions of dollars. Therefore, our preferred go-to-market strategy is to approach one company at a time and offer solutions in bulk, such as selling 50 or 100 sensors or securing a single contract valued at 300k Euros.”
With aspirations for further growth, Doktar faces the challenge of a market where IoT penetration remains below 1% in Türkiye and below 3% globally. Bilgen identified the scarcity of qualified human resources as the primary bottleneck and emphasized the need for agriculture to become a valuable global product to attract new talent and drive sector-wide digitalisation.
About
This is a series of blogs curated by PhD candidate Cevdet Bulut, who is investigating the adoption of IoT in agriculture. In this series, the author shares a limited version of his field notes and highlights from multiple case studies in a news story format as part of his current research study. The scope of the case studies is to uncover what factors (socio-economic, cultural, technical, etc.) affect the adoption of IoT and to gain experience from the field that can guide the design of viable IoT-based business models for the sector. A new blog will be published on each case study with the participant’s permission.
Blogs in this series: