Miller Magazine Issue: 155 November 2022

82 INTERVIEW MILLER / NOVEMBER 2022 one step forward with contracted agriculture, and the farm- er is encouraged to make more production, Türkiye will no longer import wheat in the coming years. I am very happy about this. This year, we felt that we are a self-sufficient country. That’s why TMO’s announcement that it has enough wheat in its stocks bolsters us up. There is no problem for our country at the moment. However, we continue to monitor the process without ignoring the dangers that await us. ‘MY DREAM FOR TÜRKİYE IS TO HEAD UP FLOUR EXPORT WITH ITS DOMESTIC WHEAT’ Türkiye has to produce wheat. The more it produces, the better. It doesn’t matter whether it is bought by flour or feed in- dustrialists or other stakeholders. Türkiye must have enough wheat. For this, it is necessary to attract the farmer to wheat. We, as flour industrialists, have achieved this by holding the world export leadership for years. However, we are achieving this under the Inward Processing Regime (IR). My dream for Türkiye is to head up flour export with its domestic wheat. I believe we can achieve this together with our farmers. Together with TMO, we managed this troublesome process very well. We, as TFIF, mobilized all the means we can with all our members, supported this step of our government, and worked on behalf of our industry in the fight against inflation. Whenever our government requested, we really showed the power of the sector in some sense. In addition to the support of the Turkish Grain Board, we, the industry, also made some stockpiling. As you know, licensed warehousing is developing in our country. We know that our farmers also have wheat in these warehouses. Thankfully, the 2022 harvest season came with abundance and was very productive in all our regions. I do not foresee any shortages in wheat supply in the 2022-2023 season. The Grain Corridor Deal, signed under the mediation of Türkiye, is regarded as the hope of overcoming the problems in grain supply. Why is this deal important for world food security? Could you evaluate the importance of the deal for the world and Türkiye? The war between Russia and Ukraine, which is described as the breadbaskets of the world, unsettled many sectors, es- pecially us, as one of the most important sections of the food industry. In this process, the concern we experienced in reaching wheat, the main raw material of our industry, reminded us that food security and food safety are not theoretical concepts, but mean global food deprivation and the subsequent food inflation crisis. Thankfully, we successfully passed this test with the Grain Corridor Deal signed in July under the auspices of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Although the grain corridor provided some relief in prices, it has not provided a privileged price for our country for the time being. No discount applies to us. Turkish flour industrial- ists buy at the same price as the world. We, flour industrialists, got a chance to sell flour to the world at affordable prices. We expect to see the reflections of this great effort and energy provided by Türkiye. But the most important point here is the contribution of this deal to humanity. Our President has really brought a different perspective here. In particular, bringing Russia and Ukraine together around the same table and getting such a good result from there not only revealed the power and importance of our country in the world but also pre- sented a very important opportunity for world food security. The world has obtained the opportunity to access staple foods at affordable prices. I see this as a service we of- fered to the world. In this context, I do not look at it as a Turkish flour industrialist, but as a global flour industrialist and a human being.