The 174th anniversary of agricultural education activities, which started with the Ziraat Mekteb-i Aliyesi (Agricultural High School) opened on January 10, 1846, for the first time in our country, with the aim of popularizing the use of modern techniques in agriculture and training qualified people in the field of agriculture, is celebrated as Agricultural Teaching Day.

Continuing its leadership in the sector with its activities to popularize conscious agriculture, GÜBRETAŞ, on the one hand, pioneers agricultural education with farmer training meetings, land prescription, model production areas and agricultural consultancy services held in hundreds of locations in Turkey every year, and on the other hand, it also contributes to agricultural education with scholarships given to farmers' children in agricultural faculties. continues its support.

GÜBRETAŞ General Manager İbrahim Yumaklı, in his statement on the Agricultural Education Day, drew attention to the importance of conscious agriculture and the work done for this purpose. Stating that Halkalı Ziraat Mekteb-i Aliyesi, opened in 1846, is an important milestone of agricultural development and conscious agricultural practices in Anatolian lands, İbrahim Yumaklı emphasized that the main mission of GÜBRETAŞ is to increase productivity in agriculture. General Manager Yumaklı said, "Although there is a widespread perception that modern agricultural techniques began to be used after the 1950s in our country, agricultural education actually has a more deep-rooted history in these lands. This college, which was opened in Istanbul 174 years ago to provide "agricultural education" and train qualified agriculturalists, has an important place in our agricultural history. GÜBRETAŞ was founded in 1952 with the aim of increasing the productivity and quality in the country's agriculture. "In line with this founding mission, we have been contributing to the development of agriculture for 68 years with our products, investments and educational activities aimed at popularizing conscious agriculture," he said.

GÜBRETAŞ Hand in Hand with Producers for Conscious Agriculture

Stating that GÜBRETAŞ has made significant contributions to the spread of conscious agricultural practices in the sector with the farmer training meetings and consultancy services it organizes, General Manager Yumaklı said: "GÜBRETAŞ, which has been leading agricultural education for years in order to raise awareness to producers, especially emphasizes the importance of soil analysis and conscious plant nutrition in these meetings. doing. Our agricultural engineers and producers work together for higher agricultural efficiency and quality. "While our producers exchange ideas with our experts and receive agricultural consultancy services, our experts also share their knowledge with the producers by observing and interpreting their practices."

Summarizing the work they carried out last year in this context, Yumaklı said, “As GÜBRETAŞ, we reached more than 42 thousand agricultural producers at approximately 4,500 points in 2019, within the scope of the free agricultural consultancy services we provide in the field. In this context, our expert agricultural engineers, who carried out field observation and prescription studies at more than 3 thousand points across Turkey in 2019, provided one-on-one information support to more than 8 thousand producers on their land. "Almost 32 thousand producers and agricultural engineers attended the training and information meetings we organized at more than 1,500 points throughout 2019, from village coffeehouses to halls in provincial centers," he said.

General Manager Yumaklı also stated that they created model production areas by collaborating with leading manufacturers in different parts of Turkey. Stating that GÜBRETAŞ agricultural engineers and the leading farmers in the region work hand in hand at all stages from planting to harvest, Yumaklı said, "We meet with our leading farmers in many provinces of Turkey and create model production areas for different plant products. In these studies, our agricultural engineers work together with land owners and benefit from each other's knowledge. Our experts and farmers select and use the most appropriate special fertilizers that we have developed according to the needs of the crop and soil in these lands. We are increasing the number of buyers of this model every year. We carried out this study at 27 locations in 2019, and this number will increase in the new year. The efficiency and quality we achieve in our model production areas are always well above the regional and national average. "We work with producers at all stages and share the results of the work with other producers in the region at the field day events we organize during the harvest period," he said.

Agricultural Consultancy is Also Offered through Technological Channels

İbrahim Yumaklı stated that GÜBRETAŞ effectively uses up-to-date technological opportunities both in its R&D studies and in its activities to popularize conscious agriculture, and added: "We support the producers through many different communication channels in our work. Producers can get information support from our agricultural engineers whenever they want, through the Producer Advisory Line and Whatsapp Advisory Line, which operate as a call center. In addition, the EGP (Effective Fertilization Program) application, Turkey's first mobile application on plant nutrition, developed by GÜBRETAŞ 5 years ago, provides producers with access to more than 50 plant nutrition programs, information and videos about conscious agriculture from anywhere and at any time. " said.

Scholarship Support for Agriculture Students

Stating that they support agricultural education as well as their activities in the field of agricultural education, General Manager Yumaklı said, "For this purpose, we have been providing scholarship support to farmer children studying in agricultural faculties since 2007. With GÜBRETAŞ Education Scholarship, one of the longest-running social responsibility projects in the sector, we both encourage agricultural engineering and aim to increase academic and qualified human resources in the field of agriculture. "We have supported the education of around 400 university students so far with this scholarship, which is benefited by students of the faculty of agriculture who are at the undergraduate, master's and doctoral stages," he said.

İbrahim Yumaklı wished a happy Agricultural Teaching Day to the agricultural sector in our country, all conscious producers, agricultural engineers and academicians in agricultural faculties.