Turkish Agriculture Minister Announces New Food Security Measures at 2024 Agriculture Summit
Turkish Agriculture and Forestry Minister, İbrahim Yumaklı, participated in the 2024 Agriculture Summit and National Product Councils Meeting held in collaboration with the Reliable Product Platform and Mersin Commodity Exchange at a hotel in Mersin. In his speech, Minister Yumaklı emphasized that food supply security has now become a matter of national security for countries.
Highlighting Turkey’s significant standing in global agriculture, Yumaklı noted the country’s vast potential, which needs to be converted into higher production and exports. Yumaklı pointed out that Turkey is a net exporter of agricultural and food products, with exports reaching $31 billion in 2023, a 3.3% increase compared to the previous year. He also underlined that the trade surplus increased by 3% to $7 billion.
Yumaklı recalled that exports in the January-April period of this year rose by 10.7% compared to the same period of the previous year, while imports decreased by 15.3%.
“FROM OCTOBER OF THIS YEAR, WE WILL IMPLEMENT PRODUCTION PLANNING”
Minister Yumaklı highlighted the revolutionary regulations made in the sector, stating, “From October of this year, we will start implementing production planning. We have finalized the plans for animal production. On the plant production side, since it is a bit more complex, we had to discuss it for a longer time. The regulation for animal production is ready to be published in the Official Gazette, and only a few technical adjustments remain for plant production. We have made contract farming and water-based agriculture efficient under the production planning.”
Emphasizing the importance of providing citizens with safe, healthy, and high-quality food, Yumaklı said, “We have made and continue to make the necessary regulations for this. We have a robust inspection infrastructure across our 81 provinces, with 41 public and 107 private institutions, 15 R&D centers, and 7,617 inspectors in the field. With this strong infrastructure, we conducted 1.3 million inspections in 2023.”
Minister Yumaklı recalled the regulations banning misleading visuals on food labels and certain food additives, adding, “We introduced a QR code system to provide citizens with access to inspection results. This system is available in the Tarımcebimde app. When you go to a food point and scan the QR code, you can see when it was last inspected. Work is ongoing to show the results of these inspections as well. We expect all businesses to participate voluntarily in this system to ensure food reliability. If you don’t see the barcode at the location, you might have doubts. Another innovation I want to mention is that our website, guvenilirgida.tarimorman.gov.tr, has gone live from today. Citizens can now access all our activities related to safe food on a single platform.”
After the opening speeches, Minister Yumaklı presented awards to six successful farmers who received support for their production.