A rising demand from European markets has led Turkey to rapidly boost its organic agriculture. With the sector”s growth rates multiplying year after year, experts agree that the country could soon take a leading role among the world”s most important organic food suppliers.
Since the earliest history of agriculture farmers have tilled the soil of Anatolia, thus producing knowledge and labor-intensive, but high-quality and chemical-free food for local markets and these small, environmentally friendly farms have always, in effect, been organic.
However, traditional farming is not the same as organic farming. Rather, organic agricultural methods are regulated and legally enforced by international authorities. General objectives and principles include, according to the Directorate General for Agriculture and Rural Development of the European Commission (DG Agri), crop rotation, green manure and the recycling of waste products, as well as a reliance on mechanical cultivation to maintain soil productivity and control pests. Furthermore, organic farming strictly avoids the use of synthetic pesticides, herbicides, chemical fertilizers, growth hormones, antibiotics or any genetically modified organisms.
Thus, real eco-farming starts in every country first with the introduction of official regulations and, therefore, in Turkey it is still a relative newcomer. Though the first fruits of organic farming were born in Turkey already in the 1980s, the number of accredited farms was insignificant for a long time. According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, in 1990 there were only about 300 farmers who had adopted organic practices in Turkey, managing no more than a combined 1,000 hectares -- not even a fraction of Turkey”s total agricultural area.
However, increasing demand from Turkey”s major export partners -- namely European countries -- has led Turkey to expand its production. With the adoption of the first regulations of organic agriculture in 1994, a first step to harmonizing Turkish laws with the requirements of the European markets, a real boost was seen in organic farming. The number of organically farmed hectares increased to more than 5,000 and the number of organic producers jumped to 1,600 -- a stunning increase by nearly 500 percent in just four years. Moreover, the trend continued and in recent years the organic sector has surely become one of the figureheads of the Turkish agricultural sector: Currently 14,000 farmers are working organically, providing over 420,000 tons of goods and managing 190,000 hectares -- about 1 percent of Turkey”s total agricultural area.
At present, organic agricultural production in Turkey encompasses more than 200 licensed products -- including dried fruits, nuts, herbs, spices, fresh and processed fruit and vegetables, cereals and oil seeds -- and it has expanded to nearly every region, with Ýzmir, Malatya, Sanlýurfa, Aydýn, Bursa, Hatay, Kütahya, Isparta, Rize and Afyon being the sector”s leading provinces. "It”s a success story," says Cengiz Aktar, professor of European studies at Istanbul”s Bahçeþehir University and an expert on the economics of ecological agriculture. "In fact, Turkey is on the way to becoming the organic food basket of Europe," he adds.
Europe a captive market
More than 80 percent of the organic products made in Turkey are exported to Europe, with Germany, the Netherlands, England, Italy and France being the major export markets. Switzerland, the US, Belgium, Denmark, Austria, Thailand, Spain, Canada, Australia, Sweden, Bulgaria, India, Japan, Slovenia and New Zealand are among the developing export markets.
And Europe””s consumer demand is still rising. According to the World of Organic Agriculture Report 2007, launched by the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM), a worldwide umbrella organization of the organic agriculture movement, it is estimated that European sales of organic products totaled 13-14 billion euros in 2005, with the biggest market being Germany, which had annual sales of 3.9 billion euros. This was followed by Italy and France, with annual turnovers of 2.4 billion euros and 2.2 billion euros, respectively. The annual growth in the market for organic products was estimated to range between 10 and 15 percent -- a demand that Europe can hardly satisfy by its own means.
"We call Europe a “captive market”, a market that is ready to buy more than it is offered," Professor Aktar explains. Given the fact that Europe is continuously asking for more organic products, he says Turkey naturally has to jump into this gap.
Indeed, Turkey bears a huge potential for even more production of high-quality organic products since its lands remain, to a large extent, unpolluted, are rich in bio and agro-diversity, have low plant quarantine problems and numerous farmers who are not yet dependent on synthetic inputs. Given these capacities and the increasing demand, there is a general consensus that Turkey could become a major player in organic farming.
But Aktar advises against hiding the sector”s difficulties. "Nonetheless, there is still a lot of work to be done to realize this potential," he says.
Certification procedures still difficult and expensive
The current import regime of the European Union allows countries to export to the EU market under the same or equivalent conditions as EU producers, which Aktar calls "a crucial point." Although the sector of organic production developed significantly over the past years and is now strictly regulated under the 2004 Law on Organic Farming and the Bylaw on Principles and Application of Organic Farming of 2005, farmers are still struggling to meet the certification criteria of new EU regulations.
One reason for this is the unwieldy costs of the necessary inspections in Turkey, which range from 250 to 500 euros per audit. In comparison, such inspections are between 110 and 150 euros in European countries. The uneven distribution of inspection and certification institutions among the geographical regions of Turkey and the necessity of sending some samples abroad for laboratory analysis due to a lack of appropriate Turkish laboratories are responsible for the high prices of inspections.
"Thus, one of the main tasks must be to help the farmers participate in the inspection programs and support their efforts to pay for the certifications laid out by the regulations," Aktar explains.
Hope for Turkey”s Southeast?
And finally there is still a significant part of the Turkish rural population involved in rather traditional farming, also called "organic farming by default." Such farms carry great potential for the sector, but the farmers have to be trained on a number of issues to understand what real organic farming actually is.
"We have to make organic farming a national policy," notes Aktar and, with regard to the Southeastern Anatolia Project (GAP), he adds: "Cleverly managed and provided with some sensitivity for ecological matters, the project may serve well both to bring the people in the countryside into the sector and to let them make their living, and to develop the Turkish potential toward becoming the “food basket,” the center of organic agricultural production for the EU."
Resource: Today”s Zaman
