Turkey is curbing dependency on seeds: Erdoğan

ANKARA

Ensuring the food safety of Turkish people has become a matter of national security for Turkey as it has for every other country, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Nov. 21, noting that Turkey stepped up for supporting local seeds.

“Foreign dependency in basic agricultural products is just as dangerous as foreign dependency in defense industry,” he said, speaking at the third Turkey Agriculture and Forestry Forum.

Underscoring that developed countries exert extraordinary efforts to ensure their food safety and future, President Erdoğan said, “It is a risk that can by no means be taken for a country like us which is located at the intersection of continents and struggles of interest.”

Turkey builds its agriculture policies upon these very facts, he said.

“We have never and will never allow any step that would pose a security risk to our country,” he said.

Turkey increased its seed exports by 11 times to 102,000 tons and increased its export to $152 million, he said.

The Turkish government launched a local seed project and ensured the protection of plant species that constitute the genetic resources of the country, Erdoğan stated.

“We will not crush Turkish agriculture within the wheel of globally-oriented profit-only employees,” the president said.

As of today, 12,000 samples belonging to 3, 400 species are kept in the gene bank, he said.