Determining the level of use of digital technology in agriculture in crop production within the scope of e-agriculture and developing policy suggesti̇ons (Konya province case)

The main aim of this study is to determine the level of digital technology use at the farmer level and develop policy recommendations. For this purpose, to determine the digitalization levels of farmers, research data was collected through face-to-face surveys with the managers of 147 farms engaged in crop production in Konya province of Türkiye. A nominal scale developed to reach the aim was used to determine the digitalization level of farmers. Two-limit tobit model was used to reveal the factors affecting the digitalization level of farmers. Chi-square analysis was used to reveal the relationships between categorical research variables, and one-way analysis of variance was used to test the differences between groups in terms of the variables examined. Research findings revealed that the average digitalization level of farmers was 0.4390 on a scale of 0-1. While the sub-dimension of the digitalization scale, mobile phone usage (0.7493), was found to be at a relatively high level, the use of smart agricultural technologies (0.0680) was found to be at a very low level. According to the Tobit model results; While the increase in the education level of the farm manager, being male, being married, membership in farmers' organizations, contract production and record keeping status, the number of tractors, the crop production value of farm positively affect the digitalization level of the farmers examined, the increase in age and the presence of social security have a negative effect. . The internet usage rate of the farmers examined within the scope of the research was found to be 88.44% and there is a significant relationship between land size and internet use. Of the total farmers 99.23% use the internet via mobile phones. It was determined that 85.72% of farmers use the internet for agricultural purposes. The rate of agricultural electronic commerce of the examined farmers was found to be 21.80%, and the rate of keeping digital records was 14.97%. It was observed that 23.81% of the farmers examined used drones, 16.33% used tractors with automatic steering, and the use of sensor machines stood out with 10.88%.