Comparative analysis of agricultural support policies in Turkey and EU countries

Agriculture is a strategic sector to sustain human life for centuries. The sector is supported by various forms because of ıts features, an important part of country?s resources transfer to this field with supporting policies. Agriculture support which is made on the basis of public intervention; includes directly or indirectly variety of intervention to prices of agricultural products by the public sector. These interventions can be done by both in the form of regulation and other mechanisms which are effecting directly or indirectly price formation. Even though there has been a strong liberalization trend all over the World agricultural protectionist policies still sustain. Especially in developed countries agriculture continues to be the most protected sector of economy. The policies which are implemented to change public budget, producer and consumer welfare, options of resource utilization, to effect of macro policies such as production, employment, foreign trade, income distribution and to constitute decisive inluences on the national income and welfare in the direction of selected policies. In European Union, supporting and directing activities for the agriculture sector are carried out in the extent of Common Agriculture Policy (CAP). CAP is the first common policy of EU and half of the union?s budget is spared for this target. The main aim of the European Union`s Agricultural Policy is to boost agricultural production in its member states, to grant farmers better living conditions, to support organic farming, to launch health standards for plants and animals and to provide co-operations in rural areas as well as to provide information transactions referring to achievements and improvements in rural areas and to stabilize agricultural commodities in order to ensure the continuity of supply. The agriculture sector is the most important and detail oriented negotiation field of the EU-Turkey accession framework, Turkey is significantly faced to ensure integration of EU agricultural policies as the most important condition to be an exact member. In this study, the support policies of EU and Turkey were evaluated according to historical periods depending on important political and social events occurred, the answer to the question for which reasons the subsidies were given and whether they have reached in the specified goals. After the comparison of the supports used in Europe and Turkey, main restrictions and differences will be determined for Turkey, the main measures for alignment are specified and reform proposals are discussed.