The joint project of the Chamber of Commerce and UNDP “Business Forum of Uzbekistan (Phase-III)” launched an initiative to install agricultural meteorological stations in Tashkent region and provide 800 farm and dehkan farms in this territory with free professional recommendations on agrotechnical measures.

Given that share of agriculture, forestry and fisheries in GDP of Uzbekistan is 17.6%, food security directly depends on the development of agriculture. The introduction of information technology, in particular IoT ("Internet of Things"), allows to increase the efficiency of agriculture, significantly increase yields, reduce the costs of growing fruit and vegetable products, while improving its quality.

As part of the initiative, agricultural weather stations operating on the basis of information technologies are already installed in Yangiyul, Urta Chirchik districts and will also be installed in the Parkent and Tashkent districts of Tashkent region, covering more than 10,000 hectares.

Each meteorological station is equipped with several sensors, which predict such indicators as the amount of precipitation, air and soil temperature, humidity of air, soil and leaf, wind speed and direction, and others. Based on the collected data, the risk of diseases and pests is calculated, date of preventive treatment by means of protection, as well as the time and intensity of irrigation.

Specialists will study a weather data and regularly send recommendations to farmers on necessary agrotechnical measures to control diseases and pests for seven types of fruit crops.

The successful implementation of the pilot project will become the basis for its replication in the whole of Uzbekistan. Thus, the foundation will be laid for introduction of the concept of "smart farm" and full automation of management process.