Why knowledge of IT technologies is important in agricultural production
2023-10-23 08:57
ABOUT THE TIME Food security is one of the most important topics at any time and for any state. It is very pleasant to realize that Belarus is a really self-reliant country in this context. Agricultural production is a priority direction of state policy. We are fully self-reliant in food and we can supply a large part of the food produced to other countries. The result is obvious - last year agricultural products held the leading positions in the structure of exports of the Republic. In order to achieve such results, farmers need knowledge - new technologies, including computer technologies, have come to agriculture.
If once a farm-woman milked a cow by hand, and the main tools in the greenhouse were a shovel and a hoe, today most operations are performed by robots - almost all production processes are automated. The equipment working in the fields has also stepped forward. It is no coincidence that the cabin of a modern harvester is sometimes compared to the cabin of an airplane. Modern computer technologies are necessary for agricultural specialists today, therefore, staff must be highly trained, remember that the food security of the country will depend on the knowledge that students of agricultural universities will obtain tomorrow.
ABOUT THE COUNTRY Grain today is like gold and foreign exchange reserves. Always useful and constantly growing in price! - Alexander Lukashenko said at a meeting dedicated to the harvesting campaign. The President also noted that the harvest is always the result of a hard work done by the agro-industrial complex during the year in order to ensure the country's food security.
And I am glad that the training of specialists for agriculture in Belarus is carried out at a high level. This is done by 4 universities and 29 colleges. The list also includes BSATU, which has trained more than 62,000 specialists for the country's agro-industrial complex over the 69 years.
The maintenance of modern technology requires considerable and not focused knowledge; therefore, all engineering specialties of our university are quite universal and enable graduates to work in various sectors of the national economy. So, Alexander Moroz is now the director general of the Vavilov Minsk Mechanical Plant - the management company of the BelOMO holding group; Andrei Khmel - Chairman of the Grodno City Executive Committee, Vladimir Krech - Deputy Minister of Forestry. However, most of our graduates have shown themselves to be competent specialists and leaders of the agricultural sector. There are the chairman of the board of the agricultural production cooperative "Agrokombinat Snov" Mikalai Radoman, the director general of the enterprise "Belovezhsky" Alexander Dunkovich.
However, our students are not limited to classes in classrooms. During the harvest season, they are always close to the village residents. I can proudly say that last year 35% of the students of full-time education at the university were involved in the students team movement - this is the highest rate among all universities in the country. And today we have already created 20 student teams, mostly agricultural, working at agricultural enterprises. Young people who have started their practice, and even some teachers of BSATU, masters of industrial training, also take part in the harvesting campaign - they work as assistants to the combine operators.
ABOUT MYSELF I am from the Novogrudok region. As a gold medalist, participant and winner of district and regional chemistry olympiads, I was invited to Grodno University, then still a pedagogical institute, to study as a chemist-biologist. But my neighbor was the chief engineer of our agricultural enterprise, he graduated from the Belarusian Institute of Mechanization of Agriculture, the current BSATU. Looking at him, I also chose engineering. By the way, in 1988, three guys from our class entered this university – all were medalists!
This year it is 35 years since I am in the walls of BSATU, first as a student, then as a teacher, and today as a leader.
Did I, while applying documents to the admission committee, think that I would become the rector, would be engaged in scientific activities, defend my dissertation? Of course not. In those days, university teachers, professors were a kind of celestials, out of reach for yesterday's schoolboy. But already five years later, when I defended my graduation project, the chairman of the commission appreciated its originality and said that it was like a dissertation.
I was offered to continue my studies to do research degree. And since I liked doing science, I agreed and do not regret my decision. Today I have more than 1000 scientific works and more than 350 patents for inventions in Belarus, Russia and Kazakhstan. Therefore, I want to wish my students only one thing - go for it! You hold the keys to the success in your hands!
Ekaterina Tsirkun, the photo by BSATU
July 27, article №30 for the newspaper “Vecherniy Minsk”