Agricultural solution in the shadow of drought seeks imports

Due to the AKP’s economic policies over the past 20 years, Turkey, once self-sufficient, has become dependent on foreign agriculture. While production declined, imports increased exponentially each year. While there were large trade and price fluctuations in major food products, especially grains and oilseeds, due to the Russia-Ukraine war last year, Turkey increased its imports by a quarter in the first 11 months of 2022. followed a policy in which the import doors were opened for certain products and the export doors were closed for certain products due to high food inflation, but despite this, the food inflation rate was 77.87 percent in 2022, according to 3 digits. According to data from the Turkish Federation of Food and Beverage Associations (TGDF), in the first 11 months of 2022, the agriculture, food and beverage sector made exports of 22.7 billion dollars and imports of 18.6 billion dollars.

GRAINS AND LEGUMES

In the first 11 months of 2022, the sector’s foreign trade surplus decreased by almost 20 percent compared to the same period of the previous year. According to the data, in the first 11 months of 2022, exports increased by 14.7 percent compared to the same period of the previous year and reached 22.65 billion dollars, imports increased by 26.5 percent to 18.62 billion dollars. dollars and doubled the increase in exports. In the first 11 months of 2022, the most imported products were wheat with 2.9 billion dollars, soybeans with 1.9 billion dollars and crude sunflower oil with 1.4 billion dollars. These 3 products accounted for approximately 33.3 percent, or 1/3 of total imports. The products that stood out in exports in the first 11 months of 2022 were flour with 1.3 billion dollars, refined sunflower oil with 1 billion dollars and pasta with 900 million dollars.

The import war did not listen

According to the report prepared by TGDF, Russia and Ukraine, which are currently at war with each other, are the two countries Turkey imports the most from, while imports from these two countries accounted for 38 percent of total imports. Russia’s share of all imports alone is 23.9 percent. In the first 11 months of 2022, the country to which Turkey imports the most in the field of food and beverages is Russia with 4,455 million dollars, followed by Ukraine with 2,624 million dollars. With 1.9 billion dollars, Brazil was the third most imported country, while Malaysia with 1 billion dollars and the US with 870 million dollars were among the 5 countries that Turkey imported the most.