Miller Magazine Issue: 116 August 2019

42 NEWS MILLER / AUGUST 2019 ‘Ensuring food safety is a matter of national security’ President Recep Tayyip Erdogan attended the har- vest festival organized by the Ministry of Agricul- ture and Forestry at the General Directorate of Ag- ricultural Enterprises (TİGEM) farmstead in Polatlı, Ankara. President Erdogan pointed out that the harvest was a feast in which the farmer collected the consequences of his one-year efforts. Erdogan said he conducted the promotion and test drive of the first domestic electric tractor and added, “Our 105 horsepower tractor which can run continuously for 7 hours with a 45-minute charge time is ready for mass production. No sound, no noise, no noth- ing. Up to 95 percent fuel-saving. I believe that this feature will reduce the costs of our farmers.” Erdogan underlined that many countries are aware of the connecting link between food safety and national security. “Now states consider ag- riculture as one of the cornerstones of national security just like defense, communications, and energy. For us, the case is no different for Turkey either. To ensure food security for our country is a matter of national security for our country. In our opinion, there is no fundamental difference be- tween importing wheat for domestic consumption and importing guns. Dependence on basic agricul- tural products is at least as dangerous and risky as the dependence on the defense industry. We con- sider agricultural production as a strategic sector beyond its economic aspect. With this understand- ing, we have put agriculture and animal husbandry at the top of the areas that we give special impor- tance and priority to in the last 17 years. One of the main inputs in agriculture is seed, which is also the initial point of food quality. The more quality seeds you have, the healthier your food will be. The amount of seed production which was 145 thousand tons in 2002 exceeded one million tons in 2018”, he said.