Introduction to Future Agriculture - I (AGRI-101)

People have come together and live in settled communities as a result of agriculture. With the humans' transition to agriculture, the first division of labor appeared in the society and production amount increased rapidly. This increase in the production provided a welfare increase in the society and societies started to develop rapidly with this increase in welfare. With the help of technology, productivity has increased and this has contributed to the social, economic and cultural development of societies. Technologically advanced societies have gone further in agriculture and societies that have completed agricultural development have gone further in other sectors.

Agricultural revolutions have continued to this day and the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, hybrid seeds and agricultural machinery in agriculture has become widespread especially in the aftermath of the industrial revolution. Conventional agriculture, which has a high efficiency, however, has many environmental damages. Industrial agriculture disrupts the environment, air, water, disrupts ecological balance and adversely affects human health. In the late 20th century and early 21st century, these damages began to be noticed and people's sensitivity to the environment increased. With this increasing sensitivity, most of the consumers have started to prefer organic agricultural products instead of conventional agricultural products. This demand for organic agriculture gradually encourages farmers to abandon conventional agriculture and turn to organic agriculture. However, it is not possible to feed the rapidly growing world population with organic farming. Even with conventional agriculture methods, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) issued a report in 2016 that the current increase in productivity is not sufficient to feed the population that will occur in the world fifty years later. When the labor force statistics are analyzed, it is seen that agricultural employment decreases with the increase in productivity in agriculture (World Bank). In addition, when we look at the profile of the employees in the agricultural sector, it is observed that a population with male dominance, middle age and above and with low education level work as labor force in the agricultural sector (TURKSTAT).

On the other hand, technologies developed with the concept of Industry 4.0, which has become a trend in the world in recent years and first put forward in Germany, may enable the agricultural sector to feed the world population in the future. However, the newly emerging Agriculture 4.0 (Digital Agriculture) concept is a question mark for everyone. As a matter of fact, if we consider the demographic characteristics (such as age, education level) of the farmers in our country, we can see that a labor force that is predisposed to use the Agricultural 4.0 technologies does not exist in the agricultural sector (TURKSTAT). For this reason, it is important to make the labor force (a new generation born in 1990 and later) eager to work in the agricultural sector, who can adapt quickly to new technologies and also to develop such technologies. However, working in the agricultural sector for young people can sometimes mean having a lower social status than working in the plaza. For that reason, it is seen that the young people who are willing to work in the agricultural sector are very few in their career surveys. However, it has been observed that the young people with agricultural family background, who had previously engaged in agricultural activities or worked in the agriculture sector, were more enthusiastic to work in the agricultural sector than other young people. In brief, it is seen that young people with any knowledge of agriculture or a short experience in agriculture are more willing to work in the agricultural sector than others.

The primary goal we want to realize with this project is to teach some basic theoretical and practical agricultural skills to young people and to inform them about today's agricultural techniques and agricultural technologies to be realized in the future. In this way, we aim to increase the interest of young people in agriculture and their agricultural knowledge. By doing so, we aim to increase the interest of young people in agriculture and their agricultural knowledge. For accommodation, we interviewed hotels and private dormitories in the center of Konya. If the project is approved, a written petition will be submitted to the Konya Governorship and Konya Police Department to ensure the security of the participants. At least one national agency trainer will be employed as a facilitator in the project. In this way, we aim to increase both the quality of the given education and the communication between the participants from different countries. The theoretical and practical agricultural training's will be given by the instructors of Konya Food and Agriculture University and Selçuk University.