Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey

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.”