Türkiye'nin tarım politikası: Politika değerlendirme matrisi yaklaşımıyla buğday destek programın etkinliğinin değerlendirilmesi

With the overall spending for agriculture mostly in the form of the distorting support measures constantly rising, effects of such policy instruments need to be clearly presented in order for the policy to be justified or abolished. In Turkey different policies have been introduced since the formation of the Republic in 1923. Government intervention has been present in the agriculture ever since. Historically, price supports in combination with input subsidies and border protection have been major policy instruments. While some authors argue that this type of agricultural support are proved to distort prices and impose net losses on society, others think that intervention in the agricultural sector can correct market failures, stabilize prices and increase income; support programs have positive impact on growth through investments in infrastructure, new technologies or provision of public goods. Farm policies in most countries are argued to be inefficient and serve only the wealthiest farmers. Agricultural policy in Turkey is being under scrutiny for its distorting effects mainly due to high price supports and input subsidies. Direct area-based production coupled support in Turkey is planned to rise from 29% of total budget for agriculture in 2013 to 45% until 2018. According to OECD indicator Total Support Estimates is much higher than in EU-27 and USA, indicating the high level of domestic support, taxes and tariffs. Wheat as a major crop product in Turkey has been supported since the early days of Republic. Despite the high level of support, wheat production efficiency stayed relatively low, with average yields being almost two times lower than average wheat yields in major wheat producing countries. High input costs combined with relatively low yields leave Turkish farmers with low profits and farmers are not able to recover their variable costs of production. Agricultural policymakers attempted to solve the problem by raising domestic prices, and thus cushion the effects of high production costs. In the end, Turkish consumers are the ones who bear the highest costs of agricultural policy. Considering both international criticism regarding Turkish agricultural policy as well as implications in the domestic agricultural market, it is necessary to understand the relationship between current agricultural policy and market conditions. Using the Policy Analysis Matrix (PAM) domestic and trade policy for wheat, as a major crop product is assessed in order to determine the divergence or distortion effects of the current Turkish agricultural support policy. For this purpose data from 2010/2011 planting season on wheat production level, costs, revenues and profits at private and social prices are used to calculate different indicators within the PAM analytical framework. Calculations are made for rainfed common wheat with maximum and minimum yield potential depending on the crop care activities performed, as well as for irrigated common and durum wheat cultivation in Turkey. Results have shown that wheat production and profitability in Turkey highly depends on the weather season, with variations depending on the rainfall and general weather conditions. In case of the unfavourable weather Turkey relies more on import due to fall in domestic production. In 2010/11 season with relatively favourable weather conditions, wheat production and yield was above the average, however profitability of the sector differs significantly between the rainfed and irrigated cultivation. Results obtained within Policy Analysis Matrix analysis of wheat production indicate competitiveness of rainfed wheat with low yields due to lower production costs that stems from the low employement of resources for the crop care. Relatively low comparative advantage of wheat production in Turkey stems mainly from input costs and output prices higher than in the major wheat producers in the world. Amongst the four different types of wheat cultivation, rainfed cultivation with minimum yields is most competitive due to lowest production costs; however best performer is certainly irrigated common wheat cultivation with high private profits, but negative social profitability due to high opportunity costs of scarce water resources in Turkey. Using the divergence identity of PAM, distorting effects of the policy is analysed. Changing the input parameters, different policy implications with respect to alignment with the European Union CAP is assessed in order to understand the possible outcomes of introduction of less distorting policy instruments in Turkish agriculture. Under the scenario analysis, results have shown that there exists a large potential for improvements in rainfed wheat production sector, either through lowering input costs, optimizing fertilizers consumption or utilizing the irrigation potentials. Usage of high yielding cultivars and supplemental irrigation could lead to significant increase in wheat yields. Therefore lowering input costs in order to decrease the burden of farmers together with improvements in productivity could yield fruitful results for the wheat production sector in the future.