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Turkey is the world's 7th largest agricultural producer and one of the biggest producers of large range of agricultural commodities, such as hazelnuts, apricots, lentils, cherries, figs, olives, tobacco and tea. About one third of Turkey's total land area is devoted to agriculture. There are approximately 3 million agricultural farms in Turkey most of which are family farms employing family labour, nearly two thirds of Turkish farms are less than 5 hectares. Subsistence and semi-subsistence farming is an important characteristic of Turkish agriculture. Although the share of agriculture in the economy has declined significantly, it is still important in both social and economic terms. In 2011 it represented 7.9 percent of GDP, 25.5 percent of employment. The most of the problems in Turkish agriculture are market related and to result from small size and lack of strong and well functioning farmer organisations and need for proper measurement to support them for their integration, beside the threats such as natural disasters affects to agriculture, instability in feed prices and pressure on the state to reduce agricultural subsidies. Turkey has been trying to overcome those challenges through implementing different support schemes for small farmers at the policy level and should also implement more measures that support research and development, skills training and help to improve productivity. |
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