THE GLOBAL WINDOW OF TURKISH FOOD AND AGRICULTURE The Global Window of Turkish Food and Agriculture Sector
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Press release…
Pointing out that 160 billion dollars worth of agricultural products were imported during the AKP (Justice and development Party) period, CHP (Republican People’s Party) Edirne Deputy Ediz Ün, in his written statement, said, “In the seven months of this year alone, 6.7 billion dollars, i.e. 214 billion liras, was paid for the import of agricultural products. This figure is exactly 2.3 times the support given to farmers and this difference is likely to triple by the end of the year. Import-based agricultural policy is destroying farmers and jeopardising our food security.”
CHP Edirne Deputy and Agricultural Engineer Ediz Ün criticised agricultural imports based on foreign trade statistics announced by TURKSTAT.
6.7 billion dollars paid for imports of agricultural products in seven months…
Emphasising that Türkiye spends billions of dollars on plant and animal agricultural imports every year, Ün explained, “The main reason why our farmers cannot earn money in our country is the pursuit of an agricultural policy based on imports. Under the AKP government, Türkiye has never been an exporting country in agriculture. The main reason why farmers are protesting today is that an average of 13 billion dollars is spent on imports every year. In the first seven months of this year alone, 6.7 billion dollars or 214 billion liras, was spent on imports of agricultural products. This figure is exactly 2.3 times the support given to farmers and this difference is likely to triple by the end of the year.”
“Import-based agricultural policy ranked first in Europe in food inflation”
Indicatin that during the AKP governments, 160 billion dollars was paid for the import of agricultural products, Ün added, “It is unacceptable for a country like Türkiye, which has a high agricultural production potential, to spend 160 billion dollars of foreign currency abroad. If this money had been spent on agricultural infrastructure investments in time, we would be a foreign currency earning country today instead of a foreign currency paying country. We would not have to import many agricultural products from wheat to barley, corn to paddy, sunflower to cotton. 160 billion dollars is equivalent to 5.5 trillion liras today. Such a large sum is enough to cover all the expenses of our farmers today. However, this import-based policy has brought Türkiye to the fourth place in the world ranking in food inflation and to the first place among European and OECD countries.”
