Govt announces major agricultural reform program

In a press conference over the weekend, Agriculture and Rural Affairs Minister Mehdi Eker announced a comprehensive reform program to rationalize the utilization of Turkey's agricultural resources and boost the sector's productivity. Based on a huge database called the Production and Support Model for Agricultural Basins, which includes wide-ranging information about climate, topography, soil and agriculture in the country's 30 agricultural basins, the program aims to create decision support models to shape government strategies towards enhanced agricultural productivity and production. Stating that thanks to this database, all of Turkey's cultivable lands can be analyzed in light of the above factors, Eker said this will enable efficient decisions on which plants can be grown productively in which parts of the country. He also said the program will also ensure the rational distribution of government financial support to the country's farmers, making productivity, and harmony between plants and the land determinants of that support. The new program will remarkably boost Turkey's agricultural production, he added.