Agricultural Mechanization to Turkey at a Glance

Abstract

In its historical process, agricultural mechanization has evolved from muscle power to advanced sensor applications, drones and autonomous tractors with the help of technology. The importance of agricultural mechanization increases due to reasons such as providing basic food need, reducing costs, eliminating labor problems and obtaining higher yields per unit area. The aim of this study is to evaluate the current situation of agricultural mechanization in Turkey. In this evaluation, the number of tractors, the number of combine harvesters and age groups, the change of agricultural machinery by years, import and export values, and the change of agricultural mechanization indicators by years were examined. While there were 654 636 tractors in 1988, this figure reached to 1 332 139 in 2018 in Turkey. While there were 12 578 combine harvesters in 2000, this value increased by approximately 37% in 2018 to 17 266. Over the years, there has been an increase in agricultural mechanization, fruit harvesters, cotton harvesters, motor scythes and feed spreading trailers, while there has been a serious decrease in the number of animal-borne grain planting machines, agricultural protection aircraft, threshing sled, primitive plough and livestock plows. Considering the import and export values of agricultural mechanization equipment between 2001 and 2018, the import value was approximately 2 times of the export value in 2001, while this value almost equalized in 2016, and the export value increased approximately 1.4 times the import value in 2018.

Keywords

• agriculture
• agricultural machinery
• agricultural mechanization