THE GLOBAL WINDOW OF TURKISH FOOD AND AGRICULTURE The Global Window of Turkish Food and Agriculture Sector
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Press release…
İzmir Provincial Director of Agriculture and Forestry said that their main purpose is to improve the existing cooperatives across the province…
Indicating that in his written statement, there are about 35 thousand cooperative stakeholders in İzmir, Özen said, “We have a total of 283 Agricultural Cooperatives, including 154 Agricultural Development Cooperatives, 85 Irrigation Cooperatives, 44 Fisheries Cooperatives operating in the central and districts of our province.”
Pointing out that İzmir is a successful province whether having agricultural cooperatives in terms of activities or number of stakeholders, Özen stated, “Some cooperatives in İzmir set an example to other regions in Turkey. These cooperatives have also received awards from national and international organizations. They carry out important works in the process of becoming a nationally recognized brand. Although the agricultural structure of İzmir province is very high along with knowledgeable farmers, conscious consumers, strong regional associations, an ancient culture of cooperatives and successful cooperatives, valuable academicians and strong public institutions, the number of successful cooperatives remained below the expected.”
Özen explained, “As a reason for this, when we look at the main problems of cooperatives in our country and in our province, we can see that our cooperatives have a small partnership and a small scale model. While the average number of cooperatives in the world is around 1000 stakeholders, the average number of stakeholders for agricultural purposes in İzmir is around 130. Besides stakeholder number of 185 cooperatives is in our region below 100. Only 6 of them have over 500 and only 2 has over 1000 stakeholders.”
Noting that while they look at the main problems of cooperatives mentioned above, Özen added, “It is seen that the number of agricultural cooperatives is sufficient. However the number of stakeholders of our existing cooperatives should rise. And what is required is more participation in decision-making processes and stakeholders should pay the amount of capital they committed to the cooperative. If they do so activities of the cooperatives will increase. Thus, we will have the chance to increase the number of successful and exemplary cooperatives we have mentioned above the expectations.”
“As our Ministry and Provincial Directorate, we know the main problems of our cooperatives. We will always be with them and continue to support them by meeting the training, supervision and financing needs of our existing cooperatives,” Özen concluded…
