Miller Magazine Issue:114 June 2019

44 NEWS JUNE 2019 Will the declared buying price for grains in Turkey increase wheat cultivation areas? Keeping away from the wheat production has been high on the agenda of relevant sectors in Turkey in recent years and now it is a highly worrisome development. All stake- holders in the sector ranging from farmers, industrialist and seed growers to traders highlighted their concerns at Grain Suppliers Association’s (HUBUDER) conference titled “Towards 2019/2020 Grain Harvest in Turkey and the World” which was held on the 16th of May in Ankara. Conference speakers mentioned that Turkey’s wheat cultivation areas were 9.2 million hectares in early 2000s but this area shrunk to 7.85 million hectares in 2015, 7.67 million in 2017 and 7.2 million in 2018. Despite the shrinkage, the output has not decreased that much thanks to the increased rate of yield. But the ongoing shrinkage and effects of the climate change create pressure on the amount of production. The main reason of this phenomenon is the disadvan- tage of the wheat against alternative products in terms of profits for farmers. In Central Anatolian region, farm- ers choose to grow barley or chickpea which have higher yield and profits. As a result, barley cultivation areas have been increased by 10 percent in Turkey. As farmers cannot make profit with wheat business, they tend to grow corn or cotton in Aegean or Cukurova regions where irrigated farming is widely available. On the other hand, Thracian farmers also give up wheat pro- duction and turn towards oil seeds like canola. In many of Anatolian farmers have been shying away from wheat cultivation. High in- put costs which are also affected by the depreciation in Turkish Lira, make it impossible for farmers to make profits. So they substitute products with lower costs for the wheat. This tendency also worries consumers, industria- lists and traders.