Pandemics experienced in history have caused the death of millions of people. The economy is shaken and the world order changed because of the pandemics. After these painful incidents, life was restored; and humankind adapted to the new order each time.
The Black Plague of 1347 and the Spanish Flu of 1918 have deeply affected the agricultural sector. These are just two of the major disasters which led to new understandings in terms of agriculture after the outbreak. There are also very critical breaking moments in Turkey’s agriculture history. Turks’ migration from Central Asia to Anatolia; the large scaled agricultural economy in the vast lands on which the Ottomans built the state; The Turks’ approach to the west with the Paris Agreement after typhus outbreak in 1854’s Ottoman-Russian War and their tendency to imported products are among these breaking moments. The Civil Code, which came into force in 1926 after the establishment of the Republic of Turkey, is a critical turning point which forms the infrastructure of today’s agriculture. When the Civil Code entered into force, the property right was strengthened and agricultural lands were divided. Due to ownership and inheritance in agriculture, agricultural lands were split, and they also started to be used for non-agricultural purposes. For over 100 years, one of the most structural problems of Turkish agriculture has been the problem of scale and inefficiency in these small and scattered lands. While the young population of 13 million increased year after year, agricultural land has decreased and divided.
TURKEY IS A SELF-SUFFICENT COUNTRY
While there was a problem in meeting the food demand of Turkey’s growing population in the 1950s, this problem was solved with the development of mechanized agriculture, synthetic fertilizers, and agricultural chemicals in agriculture. The number of tractors, productivity, and the amount of products produced increased. At the same time, Turkish agriculture was introduced to imported fertilizers, medicines, and diesel inputs in the second half of the 20th century. The economic crisis in the world in 1929, the transition to the free market in 1980, the political and economic crises between 1990 and 2002 are other dates that left Turkish agriculture defenseless against imports. After 2002, Turkey also made a major breakthrough in agriculture and became first in the “Europe’s Largest Agricultural Production” in parallel with its economic development. Today, Turkey is a largely self-sufficient country when it comes to agricultural products. However, external dependence on agricultural inputs (fertilizer, diesel, and medicine) still continues. Even though the import figures related to seeds have decreased, this is not due to the development of the domestic seed industry; but to the fact that global companies have opened their seed production stations in Turkey. Namely, even hough there is no shortage for the ‘food supply’ originating from seeds, there are question marks regarding ‘food sovereignty’.
AN INTEGRATED DIGITAL INFRASTRUCTURE TO TRACK ALL PLANNING SIMULTANOUSLY
There is a need for structural transformation in 14 fields of Turkish agriculture. The most important one of these fields is the localization of imported agricultural inputs (fertilizer, medicine, and diesel oil), which is the main reason of the food inflation. Covid 19 caused the new transformation of the world, which has passed from traditional agriculture to mechanized chemical intensive agriculture. The world will now move from chemical intensive agriculture to ecological smart agriculture. Sustainable agriculture, self-sufficient country, halal and clean food safety and national agricultural technologies will be at the top of the agenda when it comes to agriculture. Greenhouse agriculture will gain importance; the data collected via sensors will form big data; sowing-planting-harvesting decisions will be perfected by artificial intelligence; an integrated digital infrastructure where all planning can be carried and where production can be tracked simultaneously will be established; and an autonomous systems will become widespread. Biotechnology will develop in agriculture and animal livestock; and biological control will take the place of chemical control against pests. In addition to the digital transformation in livestock, the most vital step which should be taken is to overcome diseases in whole Turkey and avoid calf losses.
TURKEY WILL ASPIRE TO BECOME THE WORLD’S HALAL FOOD CENTER
Herd management systems will develop, automatic milking will become widespread, and autonomous systems will appear in every field, even in the artificial animal insemination. These technologies that are expensive for now may become cheaper and accessible in the not-too-distant future. Beside all these developments occur, clean energy is the most important requirement. Biogas from animal fertilizers and biomass from agricultural waste will provide the need for energy which will emerge as a result of this transformation. Increasing health sensitivity will speed up the transformation in dairy farming as well. Dairy farming will shift towards disease-free enterprises with modern milking parlors and cooling tanks that produce over 50 heads. Family-type businesses will move towards livestock breeding and small cattle. Considering that Covid-19 emerged as an pandemic as a result of the consumption of wild animals, it may be inevitable for the concept of “halal food” to come into prominence. If Turkey can solve the input cost problem, especially meat and milk production, and be successful in the mobilization of purification, it will aspire to become the ‘halal food center of the world”.
SMALL CATTLE BREEDING WILL LIVE ITS GOLDEN YEARS
It is the time for purification and breakthrough in livestock with a new mobilization spirit, especially with the domestic Brucella vaccine, which works effectively. Animal breeding will increase via domestic semen technologies and small cattle breeding will be in its golden years. After the pandemic, the decreasing employment in the service sector will shift towards sheep and goat farming. Number of our animals will presumably reach 100 million in a short time. Human resources who work in agriculture will also experience transformation. All these technological developments will decrease agricultural employment in the medium term; agricultural workers will turn towards more value-added areas of agriculture, their workload will diminish, and their living standards will increase. Ecologically sustainable agriculture will bring the concept of ‘green collar workers’ to the forefront. Green collars will work in ‘green jobs’. These jobs offer proper working conditions. They are sustainable and sharing. They are fair and efficient in resource use. Reverse migration from cities may be seen with the demand for green jobs and digital work culture. Now is the time for transformation to have more planned, wealthier, more environmentalist, cleaner, and greener villages. The opportunity which waits for Turkey on the eve of a new agricultural revolution is its potential to be an actor in this transformation. The new target of the national technology movement, which opened a new era in the defense industry of Turkey, should be national agricultural technologies.
Abdulkadir Karagöz