Jul 8, 2016

When Turkey's husbandry sector plunged into its first big crisis four years ago, the country imported thousands of sheep from France. The imports covered the meat shortage on the Turkish market and reined in the prices, while contributing to French farmers' prosperity. The agriculture minister at the time was awarded a medal of honor by the French government.

But the husbandry sector in Turkey never recovered, and frequent meat shortages continued to be covered with imports. In May, for instance, the government gave the green light for the importation of more than half a million livestock, including buffalo for the first time.

The problem, however, is not limited to husbandry. Once a leading country in agriculture, Turkey has seen growing shortages also in grain and pulse output, which are similarly covered with imports. Frustrated with the level of government support, hundreds of thousands of farmers have given up cultivating their fields and quit the sector. According to Ibrahim Yetkin, the head of the Turkish Agriculturists Association, millions of hectares of agricultural land has been lost, abandoned or left unused.

From 2003 to 2015, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) governments have spent 61 billion Turkish liras ($20 billion) on supporting agriculture and husbandry and 270 billion Turkish liras ($90 billion) on importing of agricultural products, according to Ozden Gungor, the chairman of the Turkish Chamber of Agricultural Engineers. Gungor said ill-advised policies have brought agriculture and husbandry to the point of collapse, with $17 billion spent on agricultural imports in 2015 alone.

The government has now announced plans to lease farmlands abroad as part of a broader package of economic measures. Deputy Prime Minister Nurettin Canikli said last month the measures would include also the import of 15,500 tons of meat. According to Agriculture Minister Faruk Celik, the government sees the lease of fertile land abroad as a priority and plans a comprehensive drive in this direction.