Neoliberal policies and agricultural transformation : Turkish case 1980-2006

The agricultural sector has been seriously effected from the neoliberal policies after 1980?s. The agricultural regime has been transformed to ?Agricultural Neoliberalism?. In this regime, markets come under the influence of the global capital and as the capital gains efficiency in agriculture, the mode of production transforms and globalized. This regime is provided by the big agricultural producers like USA and EU with the intervention of international organizations. But as these countries still intervene to their agriculture, the developing and the least developed countries face with direct or indirect pressure to liberalize their markets. For this purpose, this thesis aimed to investigate the transformation in agriculture.The thesis includes three parts. In the first part, the concept of ?Agricultural Neoliberalism? is used to investigate the formation of neoliberal globalization in agriculture. For that reason, the neoliberal globalization is defined as a regime and the three important variables power, hegemoy and international organizations are investigated in order to define neoliberalizm as a regime provided by the hegemonic powers and conducted by the international organizations and multinational companies to form a new world order.In the second part the agricultural regimes are analyzed. How the concept of regime is used in agriculture is defined and the differences of agricultural neoliberalism to the previous regimes are investigated by using the principles, norms and behavioral rules. The different exercises of the countries that signed the Uruguay Round of Agricultural Agrement are analyzed and by that way the differences in the application of the decisions taken in the agreement are investigated by using the data on productivity and production of choosen commodities. Alsa the main elements of the agricultural regime is taken and the operations of global supply chains are investigated.The third part of the thesis analysis the effects of agricultural neoliberalism on Turkish agriculture paralel to the second part of the thesis. The liabilities of Turkey on the Uruguay Round of Agriculture Agreement is analyzed in order to understand how the agricultural neoliberalism is come under the rule. The stand by arrangements with IMF, the agricultural reform project signed with WB and the developments regarding the agricultural sector in the process of full membership negotiations with EU is investigated. The effects of agricultural neoliberalism on the production side is analyzed by contract farming and by the developments in the seed sector, and on the marketing side it is analyzed by the supermarkets. The production, consumption datas and the concentration ratios of the sample industries are used in order to prove the decrease of competition and the increasing control of few companies. These examples show how the production structure is effected directly or indirectly and also shows how the transformation to global mode of production in Turkey.