Agricultural reform and agricultural policies in Turkey in the context of soft-smart power diplomacy

Many developed countries today have been able to achieve this progress thanks to transfer of capital from agriculture to other sectors. Societies that do not pay attention to agricultural elements such as soil, water, forests, climate and the environment have inevitably collapsed. This study aims to approach agricultural issues from a new perspective by examining agricultural reform and agricultural policies in Turkey in the context of soft power and smart power diplomacy. The issues of which actors are prominent in agricultural policies in Turkey, which internal and external factors have affected Turkish agriculture from the past to the present, and how, were discussed together with future solution proposals in the context of theories of "soft power" and "smart power" diplomacy. In the study, semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted within the scope of qualitative research method with expert/managerial personnel working in different units/institutions within the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, determined by the Snowball Sampling method. As a result of the interviews, it was seen that the most important actors in Turkish agricultural policies are the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, the Presidency, Chambers of Agriculture, the Ministry of Treasury and Finance and Agricultural Credit Cooperatives. Among the findings in the context of soft power, public service announcements, informative notes, common sense meetings, technological collaborations, cultural cuisine promotion and fairs, processing agricultural raw materials to reach a competitive level with foreign countries, and Turkey's membership process to the European Union stood out. In the context of smart power, the full implementation of laws and regulations, R&D studies, grant and aid programs, fairs-organizations, trade agreements, economic cooperation, seed, medicine and fertilizer improvement studies, and Russian diplomacy in the export of Ukrainian grain are among the prominent findings. It can be said that Turkey needs to make use of diplomacy tools such as soft power and smart power in order to make serious progress in agricultural policies and reforms.