Possible uses of remote sensing in agriculture and an overall assessment of its use for agricultural supports based on a sample study in Çukurova

This study consists of two parts. First part discusses possible uses of remote sensing information systems in agriculture. For the second part, farmer declaration based crop support and Direct Income Support payments made for 20 farm enterprises comprising a total of 110 plots were compared with payments that would be made if a remote sensing system were used. Results of the study show that areas eligible for support payments determined according to farmer declaration based traditional information system are 22.95% higher than those calculated based on the remote sensing system. Also, 18.57% of farmer declaration based payments do not conform to remote sensing findings. Based on those findings, it was concluded that as remote sensing applications become widespread, more reliable information about agriculture sector could be obtained and this might increase efficiency of agricultural policies and support payments provided according to them.