Türkiye wants more young people in agriculture: Minister

ANKARA

The government wants to see more young people at every stage of agricultural production, Agriculture and Forestry Minister Vahit Kirişçi has said.

“I consider food safety as the first priority of the ‘Turkish Century’ in agriculture,” Kirişçi said at a meeting of the Agriculture-Forestry Workers Union in Ankara.

“We need to shape our agricultural policies around this main axis,” he stressed. “It is our main goal to bring our sweat-loving farmers and our persevering ministry employees to greater goals in the ‘Turkish Century.’”

The minister noted that young people should be more involved in agriculture.

“We see the young employees in our ministry we have recently brought in and the country’s young farmers as the guarantee of our future,” Kirişçi said. “We want to see more young people at every stage of agricultural production.”

He added that the government attaches great importance to digitalization in agriculture.

“As I have frequently stated since the day I took office, the food issue is a national security issue,” Kirişçi stressed.

“Technological support, that is, digitalization is essential for food supply security and the product planning required for it. As the first step, we brought the opportunity to carry out some works and transactions related to the Farmer Registration System via e-Government. In this way, we reduced bureaucracy and prevented our farmers from wasting time and effort. We have made it possible to do the transactions that took days in a few minutes,” he added, also noting that the mobile application “TarımCebimde” (Agriculture in my pocket) has also been made available for the use of Türkiye’s farmers.

Meanwhile, the Producer Price Index of Agricultural Products (Agriculture-PPI) increased by 4. 82 percent in December and 151.03 percent annually in 2022, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) announced on Jan. 16.

“Compared to the previous month in sectors, forestry products and related services decreased by 3.45 percent, products of agriculture, hunting and related services increased by 5.03 percent and fish and fishing products increased by 5.37 percent,” TÜİK said.

“Regarding monthly changes by main groups, non-perennial crops decreased by 1.67 percent, live animals and animal products increased by 7.81 percent and perennial crops increased by 15.90 percent,” it added.

Fiber plants, with 82.94 percent, and products and by-products from sheep and goats, such as raw milk and wool, with 91.54 percent, were the subgroups that indicated the lowest annual increase.

On the other hand, citrus fruits, with 309.17 percent, and vegetables and melons, roots and tubers, with 191.66 percent, were the subgroups where high annual increases were realized, as per official data.