Sugar beet is one of the most important agricultural plants in the world and in our country in the production of agriculture-based industry.
In our country, sugar is produced entirely from sugar beet and with an annual production of approximately 2.5 million tons, it ranks 5th after countries such as Russia, the USA, Germany and France.
Approximately 350 thousand farmer families grow sugar beet on the cultivation area, which varies between 350-500 thousand hectares depending on the years.
CUSTOMIZATION OF SUGAR FACTORIES EXPANDED UNCONTROLLED CULTURE OF BEET!
Uncontrolled cultivation of sugar beet, which has such a strategic importance in Turkey's agricultural production, puts the country's food security at risk.
The closure of the Sugar Authority caused the control and supervision of sugar beet production to be not carried out in a healthy way.
Especially with the privatization of 10 state-owned sugar factories in 2018, uncontrolled cultivation of sugar beet has become increasingly widespread.
While an average of 4 alternations is applied in sugar beet production in Turkey, this rule has been broken in recent years and uncontrolled production has begun to dominate.
Uncontrolled production in sugar beet not only opens the door to soil diseases, but also endanger groundwater resources.
IF IT GOES LIKE THIS, DISEASES IN POTATO FIELD WILL ALSO BE SEEN IN BEET CULTURES!
The non-compliance with the alternation in sugar beet, which is a strategic product for our country, has become such that it has started to seriously threaten the country's food security.
Since there is no other product other than sugar beet, which has a definite buyer and has cash and in-kind advances, unfortunately, the producers plant sugar beet in the fields they rent or lease one after the other.
Failure to control these plantings not only reduces the presence of polar sugar, but also opens the door to soil diseases that are seen in potato fields every year in some regions of Niğde and whose treatment takes many years.
If the necessary measures are not taken urgently regarding the alternation that threatens the production of sugar beet, nematodes and similar soil diseases, which will become widespread in a large part of the fields where beet is planted, will increase and sugar beet agriculture will not be possible in these fields for many years.
CUSTOMIZED FACTORIES SUPPLY BEET FROM OTHER REGIONS!
The reason for the deterioration of the alternating production model in sugar beet is the wrong privatization policy implemented in 2018.
With the privatization of 10 sugar factories, serious grievances of farmers in these regions began to come to the fore.
The beet purchase policy of private sugar factories, especially the beet analysis, and the way they treat the farmer are keeping the farmer away from beet production.
In order to fill their production quotas, private factories started to transport the beet from different regions, which they could not plant in their own region.
BEET IS TRANSPORTED TO ALPULLU, 1,100 KM FROM KONYA REGION!
The most striking example of uncontrolled production and non-compliance with the alternation in sugar beet is the transport of beets to Alpullu, 1,100 km from the Konya region.
From the Konya region, beets are transported not only to Alpullu, but also to Adapazarı, Amasya, Çorum, Aksaray, Bor, Afyon and Kütahya sugar factories.
In fact, the most intense beet transfer from Konya region to different regions is carried out from Karapınar, where pothole formation is most common.
While the uncontrolled use of underground water resources plays a leading role in sinkhole formations, sugar beet production is tried to be shown as the only responsible one.
However, uncontrolled production in sugar beet is overlooked. While there are sugar factories in the Konya region (Konya-Ilgın-Ereğli-Çumra), if only sugar beet was produced in this region as much as the production quotas of these factories, underground water resources would not have been used brutally.