Şemsi Bayraktar, Chairman of the Turkish Union of Agricultural Chambers (TZOB), affirmed that fertile farmland should not be used without purpose, saying, “When designing roads and developing cities, care should be taken to use less land productive land that is not suitable for agriculture instead of fertile agricultural land.

Bayraktar, in his statement, recalled that every year, the first Sunday following June 11, when the Farmer Landing Law is approved, is celebrated as Soil Day.

THE POPULATION INCREASED 51 PERCENT, THE AGRICULTURAL AREA DECREASED 14 PERCENT

Pointing out that while Turkey’s population increased by 51 percent in the period 1990-2022, cultivated agricultural areas decreased by 14 percent, Bayraktar said that work done in recent years has increased processed agricultural areas.

Bayraktar affirmed that the cultivated agricultural area has increased by 3.2 percent in the past four years, saying, “The cultivated agricultural area, which was 23 million 99 thousand hectares in 2019, reached 23 million 845 thousand hectares in 2022, but this rate of increase is not enough.”

THE PROBLEM OF HERITAGE IN AGRICULTURAL LAND

Bayraktar pointed out that with the Forest Law Reform Law and Some Laws published in the Official Gazette on April 5, it is intended to lease agricultural land that has not been cultivated for two consecutive years and put it into production. intended. As a result of the increase in long-term heirs year by year, a significant part of agricultural land has become highly shared and inextricable. Transfer operations cannot be carried out on these lands and problems arise in the processing of the land due to the large number of actions. The law will seek solutions to these problems, ”he said.

THE STRUGGLE TO KEEP THE FARMER IN THE FIELD

Stating that the country’s land should not go empty in a period of rising food prices, Bayraktar said: “There should not be an inch of land that is not cultivated more, productivity must be increased. There is a fight to keep the farmer in the field all over the world. Applications that offend the farmer with the soil should be avoided. We must find ways to keep our population in rural areas to a certain extent,” he said.

Bayraktar also pointed out that the use of land without purpose should be avoided, saying:

“When designing roads and developing cities, care must be taken to use more unproductive land that is unsuitable for agriculture instead of fertile agricultural land. While alternative marginal farmland is available, fertile farmland should not be used for non-agricultural purposes. We must never allow our world-class irrigated farmland to be opened up for development, and industrial facilities and cities must not be built on this land.” (AA)