03.06.2020 Ankara
Agriculture and Forestry Minister Bekir Pakdemirli and the Union of Chambers and Exchanges of Turkey (TOBB) President Rifat Hisarcıklıoğlu met with 365 chamber/commodity exchange heads via video conference.
TOBB
President Hisarcıklıoğlu, in his address at the meeting, stated that TOBB has
been in constant consultation with Minister Pakdemirli since the first days of Covid-19.
Stating
that Pakdemirli has shown great support for the manufacturer and entrepreneur throughout
this process, Hisarcıklıoğlu said, “This dynamic way of working in coordination,
your vision and the dynamism you’ve shown gave us morale and enthusiasm.”
Hisarcıklıoğlu
noted that, throughout the process, agricultural loans were deferred without
interest, support payments for producers to survive were taken early and
interest-free loans were provided to traditional animal and vegetable
production businesses, while licenses expired in 2020 were extended a year for licensed
warehouses.”
Hisarcıklıoğlu
mentioned that the ministry and TOBB have implemented 2 important projects
together in this difficult period, “First, we implemented the DITAP project for
our country. Then we took action to prevent food loss and waste, which has
become a growing problem. We started the Protect Your Food Campaign. We will
continue to work and produce with our 365 chambers and commodity exchanges for
the faster growth of our sector.”
Hisarcıklıoğlu
also noted that local values in agriculture should be protected.
- Minister of Agriculture and
Forestry Pakdemirli
Agriculture
and Forestry Minister Bekir Pakdemirli also underlined that the importance of
licensed storage is made apparent once again with the presence of small family
enterprises in terms of sustainable production and food supply-demand balance
during the coronavirus pandemic, and said that those who had the opportunity
during the restrictied days had left the cities and village populations had doubled.
Pakdemirli,
drawing attention to the supports given in the field of agriculture and
forestry, said: “In the last 18 years, we have provided 310 billion TRY of
agricultural support. We increased our agricultural product by 7.5 times to 275
billion TRY. We built 585 dams, opened 6.6 million hectares of land for
irrigation. We planted 4.6 billion saplings. We have increased our seed
production 8 times and our seed exports 10 times.
We
increased our large livestock population by 80 percent and our small livestock
population by 51 percent. We also increased our milk production by 173 percent.
In addition, with our $18 billion in agricultural exports and $5.3 billion in
foreign trade surplus, we have become a net exporter in agriculture. We are
working and preparing the infrastructure.to increase our exports to 2, 3, 10
times.”
Pakdemirli,
pointing out that the increase in agricultural production has gained great
momentum with the support given by the Presidential System of Government,
“Today, in terms of agricultural gross domestic product in our country has
surpassed leading European countries like the Netherlands, Spain and France, reaching
48 billion dollars of agricultural product. In 2018, we provided 14.5 billion TRY
of agricultural support to our farmers, in 2019 we increased this to 16.1
billion TRY, and in 2020, our support increased by 52 percent to total 22
billion TRY. We have allocated 55 percent of our budget to our farmers, to agricultural
supports.”
Underlining
that licensed storage is a treasure trove of profit, earnings and assurance,
Pakdemirli said: “In this context, the products that can be stored currently are
grains, legumes, oil seeds, cotton, nuts and olives. I would also like to point
out that we have reached the final stage in our efforts to store dried apricot,
raisin and pistachios products in licensed warehouses. The total storage
capacity of 91 licensed warehouse businesses currently licensed is
approximately 4.8 million tons. Our goal is to increase capacity to 8-10
million tons with 140 licensed warehouse operations in 2023.”
Stating
that the Digital Agricultural Market (DITAP) is a great opportunity for the
country on behalf of cooperativeization and contract production, Pakdemirli
noted that the amount of turnover has risen every day due to the increase in
the number of companies, institutions and farmers trading in DITAP with the
training provided and works to promote it. Pakdemirli stated, in relation to the
participation of banks in the system, meetings with some private banks have
been held as a first step.”