Analysis of agricultural policies implemented in sugar beets in Turkey

The aim of this study is to analyze the agricultural policies applied in sugar beet production in Turkey. In this study, the current situation of sugar beet in the world has been revealed and the policies applied by the countries that have an important place in the production of sugar sector regarding sugar have been examined. The sugar beet sector in Turkey was discussed and the sugar policies implemented in the sugar sector between 1925 and 2022 were examined. In addition, supports related to the sugar sector in the current situation are included. In the study, the change in the sugar sector between the years 1991-2020 was discussed with the Partial Equilibrium Analysis. For the years 2021-2025, planting area, production, yield, consumption and foreign trade estimations were made. As a result of the analysis, it was concluded that instead of importing 189 thousand tons of sugar in 2025, 1 million 351 thousand tons of sugar beet can be produced on an area of 229 decares. Instead of importing sugar beet, sugar production should be increased and foreign dependency in the sugar sector should be reduced. It has been concluded that domestic production can be supported by using the cultivation areas in Turkey. In the study, a Vector Autoregression Analysis (VAR) was made on the cultivation area, farmer purchase price and production amount, and the relationship between them was tried to be determined. It has been concluded that support policies can be applied to farmer prices in order to increase the sugar beet cultivation area. According to the variance decomposition of the farmer price, it is concluded that a change in the farmer price will affect the production amount more than the cultivation area. According to the results of the Granger Causality Test, it was concluded that the cultivation area is the cause of farmer prices and production amount. In the policies to be use for sugar beet, policies to increase the amount of production should be followed primarily and domestic production should be encouraged instead of importing sugar. At the beginning of these policies, it is seen that it is possible to increase the production amount and the cultivation area by supporting the farmer price