The analysis of price fluctuations in cereal markets in Turkey

This study was conducted to reveal the factors that lead to price volatility in the grain market in Turkey. The grain production in year 2016 was carried out at 11.3 million hectares of area in Turkey. While wheat production was carried out in 67% of this area, barley was produced in 24% and maize was produced in 6%. These products are followed by paddy (0.99%), rye (0.96%), oat (0.88%) and others (0.37%) respectively (TURKSTAT, 2016). In this study, researches were carried out on wheat, barley and maize, respectively, which are of greatest importance to planting and production, and which are the most traded cereals products on the market. The price changes between the years 2000-2016 of these three products, which are the most traded on the cereal stock exchanges, were examined and the price movement in the market was tried to be revealed. The most commonly traded products in the cereal market were analysed for their prices between 2000-2016 according to variance and standard deviation method. In the analysis, the fixed prices calculated based on the year 2016 from average prices of the products are used. According to the results of the research, it is understood that the domestic prices of wheat and barley products are affected to a great extent by the world prices, in other words there may be a close relation between the domestic prices and the world prices. It has been understood that both world prices and domestic production may be effective in the formation of maize's domestic prices.