THE GLOBAL WINDOW OF TURKISH FOOD AND AGRICULTURE The Global Window of Turkish Food and Agriculture Sector
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The specialized organized industrial zone based on agriculture (TDİOSB) is a wide range of goods and service production areas established by the public, legal person or persons, aimed at ensuring the integration of the agriculture and industry sector, producing agricultural and animal production and industrial facilities for their processing.
The purpose of establishing these regions is to bring together all kinds of animal and plant enterprises according to their specialization, to create zones where every stage of production is controlled, hygiene is ensured, efficiency and quality is maximized, low cost production is encouraged, entry and exit can be controlled. Through these regions, supporting and developing crop and animal production and the industry based on them, packaging, processing and preserving products, supplying appropriate and high quality raw materials will ensure the development of agriculture-industry integration.
In this context, 2 thousand 240 enterprises, including 1800 breeding enterprises, 130 dairy enterprises, 260 greenhouse enterprises, 50 flower enterprises in 27 provinces in our country, operate in TDİOSB, which has been operating as agricultural production bases.
INTEGRATED MANAGEMENT APPROACH…
The year is 1994. I am working with a lecturer at Muğla University. The university has just opened, each of us has dreams of opening successful and long-term departments. Muğla and its surroundings are not only a tourism destination but also a city with a high agricultural potential. Naturally, it is our greatest desire to open departments that will contribute to the development of agriculture in the university. Finally, a good news came, the “beekeeping department” in Ula district and the “greenhouse department” in Fethiye started training. I was very excited, about a month later, a friend of mine from Fethiye Greenhouse Vocational School came to visit. I immediately shook him with questions, thinking that the college might have brought great advantages for our region…
But in response to my excitement, our teacher sighed deeply and commented that the situation was not what I thought. First, there was no college building, they restored a makeshift building and started training. The place where the building is located was in the middle of an agricultural land, and all the animals in the area were giving concerts while the teachers were lecturing, preventing the lesson from being taught. Moreover, there was no place for any academician to stay or an environment where they could do academic studies.
For this reason, it was agreed with the teachers from the vocational high schools around and they were giving the lessons. I was very sad that day. Because we had an understanding of management that negatively affected the lives of many people from the beginning, without considering all possibilities, why we made instant decisions. Years have passed and at the end of the trainings I have received, I have seen how well a management approach overlaps with the events I experienced years ago. What was this approach?
Holistic Management Approach…
For the first time, Zimbabwean naturalist, wildlife expert Allan Sovey presented this approach to the scientific world to find a solution to the problem of desertification in his own country and all African countries. He says; holistic management is a way of thinking and management that tells us to take the world as a whole and act by considering the possible consequences of our decisions while making decisions on any issue. I’m asking now. Who will benefit from the urgent decisions taken today without thinking about it for the future? Who will be hurt by them? Who will pay for these mistakes?
REGIONAL POLLUTION, ENVIRONMENT, AGRICULTURE…
Do specialized organized zones based on agriculture improve agriculture? Many scientific studies have shown that the gigantic enterprises in our agricultural lands, even if they are agricultural enterprises, cause serious damage first to the agricultural areas and then to the environment. The damage caused by pollution on major herbal products is irreversible. Why is that? Because of the mistakes in investment planning and location rather than the size of the investment.
Although more marginal agricultural areas not used by the state are preferred in the selection of industrial organized regions, these are pasture areas that are very important for the livestock sector. On the other hand, wastes from these facilities; it causes air, water, soil, noise and radiation pollution. In most of the newly established specialized agricultural regions in our country, there is a concentration on fattening. On the one hand, livestock enterprises consume excessive water, on the other hand, if the rules are not followed, our groundwater is polluted due to manure and urine.
One of the reasons why these regions are built is to produce greenhouses with “geothermal energy”. In Aydın province and Alaşehir district of Manisa province, there was a serious decrease in the yield of grapes and figs, which is the reason why geothermal energy wastes cannot be disposed of properly. I wonder if there are people who think with a holistic management approach whether the facilities established on thousands of acres and that are thought to contribute to agriculture will bring benefit or harm to the farmers, peasants and cooperatives in the vicinity? Who will pay the bill for the mistakes made today?
15 000 000 CUBIC METRES METHANE GAS AT ATMOSPHERE…
Gas extraction and excrement of animals creates methane gas, which contributes greatly to global warming. Carbon dioxide gas is often cited as the reason for global warming, but methane gas is 85 times stronger than carbon dioxide gas when it comes to capturing heat, although it decomposes much faster than carbon dioxide. There are approximately 20 thousand cattle raised in Çubuk Animal Husbandry Organized Industrial Zone for fattening purposes in Çubuk and Akyurt districts.
Let’s make a calculation. Approximately 600 kg. A dairy cow of live weight produces 20-25 cubic meters of gas per day in a closed weight. When we multiply this with 20,000 animals, in total 500,000 cubic meters of methane gas is released into the atmosphere in just one day. When we calculate this within a period of 1 month, it is 15 000 000 cubic meters. Isn’t it a scary figure?
Now I want to ask a new question from a holistic point of view: “If human beings will benefit ecosystems, soil, water resources, all kinds of living creatures while producing food, and if this benefit will be strengthened with ethical and human values, why do not we use thousands of millions of dollars daily and populist decisions for small farmers to engage in sustainable agriculture, We are turning to investments that will deeply affect the region in terms of agriculture and will not create benefits? Sometimes I get confused. What about you?
By Professor Dr. Meltem Onay,
Vice Rector
15 November Cyprus University
