Speaking at the Agriculture Summit, West Mediterranean Exports Association President Mustafa Satici: “Even though 94% of the agricultural production in Turkey is consumed in local markets, the prices are determined by the 6% of the products which were being exported. Despite the high rate of local consumption, exports are very important in setting up the prices in the local market. If a particular product is exported, then its price in the local market suddenly increases significantly. If the product is not exported, then the prices go down markedly in the local market.
I would like to emphasize a few important topics about agricultural production in Turkey. We are the biggest agricultural producer in the whole of Europe and currently ranked 5th in the world. We grow around 45 million tons of products every year and around 3.5 million tons of it is exported. Exports have a big added value to our national economy and we are geographically in an advantageous location to export to a lot of countries in Europe and Asia. Russia is one of the most important markets to export and all the restrictions to Turkish products have been lifted with the exception of tomatoes. We should also not forget the importance of the industry for creating employment opportunities.
As a country, we are an important actor in the regional trade of agricultural products. Our rankings in Europe and in the world demonstrate our role. Our production capacity is quite remarkable right now.
However there are some issues we need to solve. We are lacking significantly in utilizing economies of scale. We have a lot of growers growing in small areas. We have greenhouse growers in areas around 20,000 square feet, fruit growers in 70,000 square feet, legumes growers in 150,000 square feet. These are sub-optimal areas in terms of size to grow these types of products. Because of this issue, we could not enjoy the benefits of economies of scale. This also creates problems for us in planning the production, productivity and quality. As a result, we could not set up the system for food safety and chemical residues. But we have been trying very hard to improve our growers in these areas. Occasionally we still have problems and our products are being returned but in general we have come a long way in food safety.
The greenhouse production in the area is a very important aspect of the production. We have more potential to export but in long distances we experience loss of quality issues due to transport thus we are focusing more on the neighboring countries. We export fruits and vegetables to around 66 countries in our region and 109 in total.
I would also like to remind how important Russia is as an export market. Before the political crisis in 2016, 45% of our exports were to Russia. However during the crisis, we lost our business lines to that market. We have managed to experience only a 7% decrease in exports during that time thanks to our government’s support and our export growth strategy which focused on other markets. Now the restriction on Turkish products in Russia have been lifted except for tomato. Only in tomato, there are some restrictions applied in quantities and the firms which are allowed to export. We'll have these restrictions lifted soon.
The agricultural industry needs to be supported more as we have a net trade surplus in this sector and contribute significantly to our economy. “
Source: Antalya Son Haber