Turkey to pay 2 billion liras to support farmers by end of February: PM

ANKARA - Anadolu Agency

Turkey will make payments totaling 2 billion Turkish Liras ($815 million) to support farmers for fuel, fertilizer and forage crop purchases at the end of February, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu announced on Feb. 25.

Work is also being conducted to increase support in the cotton sector, Davutoğlu said in a speech at the opening of the Agricultural Information Systems meeting in Ankara.

He added that the government has paid around 1.6 liras in support to farmers up now, as well as 1.7 billion liras in compensation for damages.

 “We have also transferred around 3 billion liras of financial support to 42 provinces in the framework of the [European Commission’s Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance in Rural Development] IPARD fund. We plan to transfer an additional 3 billion liras over the next five years,” Davutoğlu said.

The prime minister noted that support was given for the use of certified seeds in a number of agricultural products including wheat, bean and fruits, and said the government will increase the rate of grants to milk and meat producers from around 55 percent to 70 percent. Grants to local tourism and cultivated fishing enterprises are planned to increase from 50 percent to 65 percent.

Meanwhile, Davutoğlu also said the total area for organic farming in Turkey had increased up to 796,000 hectares from around 90,000 hectares over the last decade.

The government has offered a total of 15 billion liras in supports to animal breeders in the last 12 years, he said, which has led to Turkey’s overall milk production increasing to 18.5 million tons in 2014 from 8.4 million tons in 2004. Red meat production has risen to 1 million tons from 421,000 tons and chicken meat production has risen to 1.9 million tons from 696,000 tons.