Disappointed manufacturer: the advertised price does not save
In Aydın, one of Turkey’s most important cotton regions, cotton purchase prices that producers were eagerly anticipating disappointed and demoralized farmers.
Söke Chamber of Agriculture Chairman Mustafa Tanyeri, who evaluated the price announced by the Cotton and Oilseed Agricultural Sales Cooperative No. 131 Tariş Söke for cotton grown on approximately 550 thousand decares of land this year as “very bad,” he said: “We were all waiting with great curiosity for Tariş to announce the price. As in previous years, he looked at the stock market and announced that the purchase price of cotton for 2023 would be 49 TL times the yield. This means that the price of 40 yield cotton seed is 19.60 TL and the price of 42 yield cotton is 20.58 TL. Our costs are 24.65 TL. In other words, farmers will sell their cotton for 4 lira less than the cost of inputs, he said, adding that cotton cultivation areas will decrease significantly in the coming period.
“IT IS NOT POSSIBLE TO GO LIKE THIS”
Tanyeri said that it is not possible for cotton prices to continue like this: “In recent years, there was a difference of 1 to 2 lira between the prices of cotton coming from abroad and the prices of cotton produced by Turkish farmers. This year there is a difference of more than 10 liras. Our state needs to pursue a policy that protects our farmers, especially during the harvest period. “In order for the cotton producer to be able to produce in the coming years, the support premium should be at least 5 lira, not 1.60 Turkish lira,” he said.
THE PROMISE ‘1 KILO OF COTTON, 1 LITER OF FUEL OIL’ BECOMES A DREAM
Evrim Karakoz, MP of the Republican People’s Party for Aydın, reminded producers of the traditional comparison measure “1 kilo of cotton is equivalent to 1 liter of diesel fuel” and said: “Before you could sell 1 kilo of cotton and buy 1 liter of diesel”. fuel. Nowadays you can only buy 1 liter of diesel with 2 kilos of cotton. Cotton producers cannot accept this announced price. Despite the high input costs, given these tragicomic prices announced by TARİŞ, cotton producers in Çukurova and Söke will lose between 4 and 5 TL for every kilo of cotton they produce. If this continues, producers will no longer plant cotton, which is a strategic product. “TARIS should urgently review this announced price and update cotton purchasing prices to at least 40 TL,” he said.