Within the framework of the Smart agriculture program, the employees of the SPC GF named after A.I. Barayev completed an internship in the Republic of Belarus.

Employees of the “Scientific and Production Center of Grain Farming named after A.I.Barayev” LLP Bazarbayev B.B., Shupanov E.E. and Bekeshev B.Zh. from December 6 to December 14, 2022, completed an internship at the Institute of Advanced Training and Retraining of Agricultural Personnel of the Belarusian State Agrarian Technical University within the framework of the republican Smart agriculture program.

The topic of the internship is the practice of using information and analytical systems for crop production management in agricultural organizations of the Republic of Belarus in the precision farming system.
During the internship, our employees took part in various dialogue platforms, where meetings were organized with employees of such institutions as: the Ministry of Agriculture and Food of the Republic of Belarus, the Scientific and Practical Center for Agriculture, the Institute of Soil Science and Agrochemistry, the Institute of Plant Protection, the republican association “Belsemena”, as well as companies and leading plant farms of the Republic Belarus.

The issues raised at the meetings concerned the use of precision farming elements and the problems of their implementation in the activities of agricultural organizations of the republic. Great interest was aroused by the information resource digital platform for intelligent management of farming systems being developed at the Institute of Soil Science and Agrochemistry, as well as the practice of using the Cropwise Operations information and reference system.

In addition, during the visit to the “Belsemen” RO, on the development of the seed production system in the Republic of Belarus, an agreement was reached on the exchange of seeds of perennial herbs and cereals.
During the internship, on December 13, 2022, the Institute of Advanced Training and Retraining of Agricultural Personnel held an international round table with the participation of representatives of Kazakhstan, Belarus and Russia on the topic “EXPERIENCE AND PROSPECTS FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF PRECISION FARMING REPUBLIC OF BELARUS” The scientists of the SPC GF named after A.I. Barayev also took part in it online, and the head of the Laboratory of Precision Farming, V.F. Skoblikov, presented his presentation on the designated topic.

All participants noted the importance and economic feasibility of introducing elements of precision farming. At the same time, despite the undeniable advantages of precision farming, there are a number of unresolved problems that hinder its further development. The main ones are:

- insufficient awareness of rural producers about the advantages of precision farming;

- insufficient state financial support for the purchase of IT products;

- lack of financial resources in many agricultural organizations to invest in IT technologies, consulting and information processing;

- high cost of services provided by IT specialists to rural producers;

- lack of IT specialists adapted to the agricultural sphere;

- shortage of specialized specialists in agriculture who are able to work with computer programs and applications;

- insufficient development of digital infrastructure in rural areas.

In general, the necessary conditions have been created in the Republic of Belarus for the further development of the precision farming system, which is becoming an effective tool for agricultural business.