Miller Magazine Issue: 112 April 2019

39 NEWS APRIL 2019 April 5 economic measures published in 1994, the board’s duty to buy pulses had ended. In 2018, the production of chickpeas increased by 34 percent compared to the previous year and reached 630 thousand tons, and green lentil production reached 43 thousand tons increasing by 43 percent. Because of this increased production, in order to prevent the market price from hurting our producers, the board was tasked to buy pulses after 25 year long hia- tus. After this task, the buying price for chickpea has been announced as 3.250 TL per ton on June 27, 2018, and buying price for green lentil has been announced as 3.000 TL per ton on July 23, 2018. A total of 96 thousand tons of chickpeas from 8 thousand 120 producers and a total of 14 thousand tons of green lentils from 1530 produc- ers were purchased across the country. In return, a total of 314 million TL was paid to 9 thousand 650 producers. Thus, possible suffering has been prevented. In addition to these prices, our ministry also provides 792 TL support payments for premium, diesel, fertilizer, and seed support per ton. When TMO was tasked with the purchase of pulses and started to purchase at the announced prices, the price of natural chickpea which was 2,500 TL / ton at the beginning of the harvest was increased to 3,250 TL / ton. TMO takes all necessary measures to protect the pro- ducer and the consumer. With the purchase of pulses, we prevented the producer’s victimization. In order to protect the consumer, we sold the chickpea stocks in the range of 4.0 - 5.50 - 6.5 TL / kg according to the caliber and the green lentil stocks in retail at 4.5 TL / kg. Our board’s sales prices are about 40 percent below the market prices on average,” Güldal said. PRODUCTION OF PULSES INCREASED BY 50% IN THE WORLD During his speech, Ahmet Güldal commented on the world’s pulses market: Around 95-100 million tons of pulses are produced in the world. The pulses production in the world has increased by around 50 percent in the last ten years. In order to secure the food safety and to close the protein gap of population suffering from undernutri-