Agricultural policies of Turkey as a candidate country to the membership of the European Union

Attempt to join to the European Union by Turkey started with Ankara Agreement in 1963. The approachment between Turkey and the European Union has continued via the mutual commitments for foreign trade preferences. Decisions and policies concerning with agriculture in European Union are implemented within the framework of Common Agricultural Policy, which is the most important of the common policies at the Community level. Due to its complex structure and procedures, the Common Agricultural Policy has been reformed through out the history of Community. The latest of those reforms is the one made by "Agenda 2000". This subject is also highly concerning Turkey which is included to the present enlargement process of the Community, together with the other applicant countries from Central and Eastern Europe. Agricultural sector has been the major sector and played an important role for Turkish economy for many years. Problems related to agricultural policy and international conditions urged Turkey to seek for new policies. With the supports of World Bank and IMF radical reforms have been started. It is expected that these reforms will ease the harmonization of Turkey's agricultural policies with Common Agricultural Policy, which is the most important issue in relations between the two parts in field of agriculture. There are enormous differences between Turkey and European Union in respect to agricultural structure, agricultural population, size of holdings, organization of farmers, subsidies, productivity, technology, institutional organization and product quality and standards.