“2013 was a bountiful season for wheat harvests in the world, ten yea r’s record is expected in Turkey, who has an export potential to the world markets in crops,” says Mehmet Reis, Chairman of Reis Food Company. “Agricultural exports contribute to the deficit of foreign trade.”
This year Turkey has become self-sufficient in wheat harvests, experts say. Increasing usage of improved seeds and enlargement of arid land and state incentives provided to the agricultural businesses has yield its results, and harvest records are broken in many kinds of crops.
According to the information given by Reis Company, a leading player in the industry, growing figures of harvests lead prices for wheat down and for some other crops. And even price of rice is expected to go down 20 percent in September. Price of red lentils is stable, however, sufficient amount was harvested while it was down 20 percent this year.
Due to the reduction in the land allotted to crop agriculture, and limited yields of the harvest, and drought in some areas, bean and chickpea harvests are expected to be low this year compared to last year’s. Early harvests of chickpea have lowered the prices by 10 percent. In August beans begin to come to the market and prices seem to be higher than the year before.
Green lentils production harvested in Turkey, meets only one forth of the total demand. Lentil imports will continue again. Read bean also be imported this year. Mehmet Reis is optimistic about the potential of agricultural products in Turkey. In line with growth in the usage of quality seeds, and other incentives and
developments in agriculture industry, Turkey may become a net exporter of crops. He says, “According to a report of OECD, food harvests are going down in the world. This is a dangerous trend for the feeding of world population. More land are needed. Turkey has some advantages in this regard. Arable land can be expanded up to serious levels. More can be done in agriculture to increase yield and production volumes in many products.
80 percent of agricultural exports are produced by small farmers. For only 20 percent of the exports depends on foreign inputs. Agricultural exports are important tools for closing the foreign trade gap of the company. Agriculture exports may easily be reached up to 20 billion dollars from its present level of 16 billion in a couple of years.”
