“We talk a lot about agriculture, adopt many programs, and hear many reports. But let's ask ourselves a question: despite so many programs, artificial intelligence applications, and funds, why does Azerbaijan still import many food products? Why does a country with land sometimes face fluctuations in potato, onion, and wheat prices in the market?”
According to **Modern.az**, this was stated by MP Razi Nurullayev at the public hearing held today by the Agrarian Policy Committee of the Milli Majlis on the topic “Application of Artificial Intelligence in Agriculture: Results and Prospects.”
According to the MP, the root of the problem is that, despite the work and efforts of the Ministry of Agriculture, systematic and long-term planning has not yet been fully formed:
“Today, thousands of hectares of land in the country are either not cultivated at all or are cultivated without conforming to any agrarian strategy. The farmer does not consider which product is more needed for the country, nor can he. As Anar muallim also noted, he simply cultivates whatever product was expensive in the market a year ago. As a result, one year there is an abundance of potatoes, prices fall, and the farmer incurs losses. The next year, there are few potatoes, and the market becomes dependent on imports. In such a case, we are faced with a model of accidental production, not planned production.”
Razi Nurullayev emphasized that the application of artificial intelligence-based services across 30 modules is envisioned, but an important question arises here: do these services reach hundreds of thousands of ordinary farmers, or are they primarily used by large agroparks and big farms?
“I am often in the regions and observe that ordinary farmers' access to these services is either very weak or almost nonexistent. Presentations and services are displayed in colorful ways, and everything looks very beautiful in offices and presentation halls. However, those colors and beauties cannot reach the ordinary farmer living in the village. He is as distant from the services shown in this presentation as the moon and stars. I would like to get an answer to this question.”
Another serious problem is the excessive fragmentation of farms:
“It is very difficult to achieve high productivity with fragmented land plots, to manage them, and to provide services to all of them. In the world's developed agrarian countries, large and corporate farm structures are formed, and technology is widely applied. In our country, however, this process is not yet progressing fast enough.
During the Soviet era, the kolkhoz and sovkhoz system existed. Its political aspects may be a subject of discussion, but we must accept one reality: land was managed on a large scale and in a planned manner. Today, however, a modern form of that model, adapted to the market economy – agroparks, agrarian corporations, and cooperative farms – should be created more widely, and the allocated land shares of the population should be involved in this process. Is this process underway? I would like to get an answer. This is a very important issue. Because a family that owns land cannot receive targeted state social assistance. Now let's see if owning that land can provide for their livelihood throughout the year? Proper coordination should be established between the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection of the Population (ƏƏSMN) in this area, and artificial intelligence can automate the work in this field,” – he stated.
