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BAYRAKTAR: 2021 WILL BE MORE RISKY BECAUSE OF DROUGHT

Press release…

Şemsi Bayraktar, Union of Turkish Agricultural Chambers President, in his written statement, said that drought is one of the important agenda items in the world.

Bayraktar said, “When the pandemic process is taken into consideration, the importance of food increases more. According to the FAO Food Price Index; The global food trade rose sharply in November, hitting the highest price levels in the past six years. Food prices continued to rise continuously for 6 months.”

“The year 2021 is more risky than 2020. Because drought creates this risk. The drought in our country will adversely affect production. If we do not get rain by mid-December, the risk will increase further. In many countries, we see losses in yield due to drought. For example, 22 percent of winter wheat plantings in Russia have been identified as lack of growth. In this case, Russia and other producer countries may ban their exports in 2021, as we have seen during the pandemic process,” Bayraktar noted.

“As a matter of fact, Russia is preparing to impose an additional 30 percent tax on exports of sunflower products. Turkey is importing these products, you have to turn to other countries. Countries have already started to close down,” Bayraktar warned.

Bayraktar continued as follows: “Next year, we may encounter export bans on vegetable and animal products, especially wheat. We have to stock a certain amount of strategic products, especially wheat. As in the past, it is not possible to find products at cheap prices, even if we reduce customs when prices rise in the domestic market.

If the drought increases in size, it will not be possible to find products even if we have money. We have no other choice but domestic and national production. There should be no empty land in our country. The empty, uncultivated land left by our farmers should be brought into production.

Against the risk of drought in the world and in our country, if we do not take our measures now and if we cannot ensure sufficient production, we will no longer be able to obtain cheap wheat, cheap meat, cheap dairy products and other products from producer countries. We also import inflation from these countries. This means that many of our people in our country cannot access food.”

“Moreover, even if we have money, it will not be possible to import some products. We must take urgent measures. It should focus on structural problems, especially opening the non-irrigated areas to irrigation, the electricity and water costs of our producers, which were already high in this period, should be reduced urgently and the support given to our producers should be increased,” Bayraktar added.

“We should not detract our producers who do their best in order to be able to feed this country from the soil,” Bayraktar concluded…

About İsmail Uğural

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