According to the statement of Ahmet Yılmaz, the board chairman of the Sub Union of Seed Industrialists and Producers (TSÜAB), Turkish seed sector has gained acceleration after the 1980’s with the contribution of private sector.
He said that all 961 members of TSÜAB are serving for Turkish agriculture and the seed growing law that was introduced in 2000 contributed the sector a lot. He continued:
‘’The certificated seed production has increased 3,5 times more in 10 years. Our exports rate meet the import by 85 percent rate today; meaning we make 186 million dollars of exports in return of 200 million dollars of imports. We have increased exports 8 times more in 15 years.’’
We are planning to take place in top 5 sectors globally
Yılmaz emphasized the importance of the government contribution regarding the seed sector’s improvements he added:
‘’ We are aiming to be at the top 5 sector globally and make an exports worth 500 million dollars. We export our seeds to nearly every country on earth. There is an urban legend in our country regarding the usage of Israeli seeds; our seed exchange with Israel constitutes 5-6 percent of our seeds, we both export to them and import from them. If Turkey shut down it’s borders to world today, it would be able to produce enough seeds to meet the demand.’’
99 percent of the grains are planted with domestic seeds
Yılmaz continued his words by saying:
‘’ We mostly use domestic seeds in agriculture, 99 percent of the grains are planted with domestic seeds; we passed 60 percent of indigenousness rate in vegetables; yet we have a gap in corn and sunflower seeds, we are working on it. We export seeds to 80 countries. We were not able to export seeds 30-35 years ago; yet we are ranked as 11th in global seed sector today.
source: AA / translated by Bazaar Team