In our elementary school ages, there was a classic definition taught to us: Turkey, is one of seven countries self-sufficient in the world. In time, we learned that this is not so. Because of increasing governments misunderstood agricultural policies Turkey, space had become importers of food.
Imports of agricultural products, which are not limited to live animals and carcass meat, from straw to pulses, from potatoes to peanuts, have removed the table of our citizens from being indigenous.
Wheat, rice, meat and pulses, food and agricultural products were not imported in almost no product. Turkey increased the price of each food and apply on imports of agricultural products, as well as the ''local and national agriculture'' definitions in many areas had just left in a consists of words.
Turkey, in fact, is a country in the agricultural paradise. Especially in four climates with greenhouse method we can grow vegetables and fruit comfortably. Well, our citizens are in the shopping bazaars and in the market, why are take these products expensive and have to eat at their tables? As President Erdogan describes this situation ”food terrorism'', has the government no fault at all? Of course it's guilty. For, as we have mentioned above, like many governments, this government has ignored the agricultural policies for 17 years. It did not take the right steps to make the citizens more suitable for food and to reach cheaper prices. Especially, the intermediaries that make the food coming from the field to the plate, no precaution was taken in order to prevent the excessive profit making. And, this is the point we've reached!
The government has entered into a so-called action to stabilize food prices in the shopping bazaars and markets by means of the regulation sales method. Our citizens are standing and waiting for hours in queues in order to buy a kilogram of tomatoes, one kilogram of potatoes at regulated sale points.
Did the regulated sale points in the shopping bazaars cause a betting and balancing on the market prices? Last Saturday I had the opportunity to test this in the bazaar of our own neighborhood.
Unfortunately there was no price drop in any food product, and tradesmen in the bazaar continued to sell food at exorbitant prices. The task of a government is to prepare the policies of agriculture and animal husbandry for the future, to establish 5 year, 10 year plans and strategies, to establish chains in which citizens can reach food in a cheap way.
The job of a government not to create the regulated sales point to sale a few liras of tomatoes and potatoes and to condemn the citizens to the queues. In a country where diesel fuel exceeds 6 liras, fertilizer and the drug is growing, there is a need for a will to solve the problems of the agricultural sector. And, how to eliminate the terror imposed by the intermediaries on the profit rings in the chain that will be lived until the product came to the plate after it emerged a solution must be found.
For this, a law of righteousness should be put forward and the rings of the chain that cause the citizen to reach the food at exorbitant price should be intervened.
If the agricultural policies are adjusted correctly and the producer is supported, food production will be provided at a much cheaper price, and the indigenousness and nationality can be formed more in the tables of our people. All of this could not provided by speeches. All these can be done with the right steps, right strategies and right moves.