Abstract:

Introduction:
Agriculture is one of the key sectors of the economy of the Republic of Kazakhstan, and currently, 45% of the total gross of agricultural output produced in the county is an animal husbandry. In 2018 Kazakhstan adopted new programs for beef and dairy cattle industries development to increase livestock efficiency and strengthen the country’s export potential. The programs will focus not only on beef and milk production, but also on technologies and equipment for effective use of pastures, increasing areas of irrigated pastures, meat and milk processing. At the same time, attention should be paid to the low competence of farmers and peasant farms with regard to maintenance, feeding and reproduction of dairy cattle breeding.

Implementation and methodology:
Seifullin Kazakh Agrotechnical University (Seifullin KATU) has become the scientific and methodological center for digitization in the agro-industrial sector. One of the innovative projects in this field is “Transfer and Adaptation of Innovative Technologies for Optimizing Production Processes at Dairy Farms of Northern Kazakhstan”. In order to implement project objectives, the technology of SmaXtec and GrowSafe companies were established on the basis of model farms.
In the framework of project implementation, the practical workshop on knowledge dissemination on the use of digital technologies in the field of dairy farming as well as surveys to identify farmer’s needs have been held by Seifullin KATU team in order for the introduction of technologies to be successful and productive. More than 50 seminars were held and more than 500 participants took part in survey during 2018-2019. The overall aim of the workshops and survey is to strengthen the understanding and use of digital technologies at farm level, to identify and share effective tools and methods to communicate digitization opportunities to farmers. 525 workshop participants were covered by the survey including farmers, agricultural producers, industries, researchers, among them the number of farmers prevailed.

Results:
According to the survey results, it is necessary to note, that from total number of participants, almost 96 percent need support to understand and take up new technologies and to make decisions on ICT use adapted to their specific needs. In total number of interviewed, share of interviewed who are able to understand the digital-based solutions was only 4 percent. According to results of the survey, the objectives of the workshops were achieved according to 97% of participants considered the information provided and the discussions held at the workshop useful for their future activities. The workshop participants showed a high interest in the questions on the use of SmaXtec and GrowSafe systems.

Keywords:

Digitalization, technology transfer, model farm, knowledge dissemination.