Mehdi Eker, Minister of Food, Agriculture and Animal Farming, announced that producers will be provided 10 billion liras of agricultural support in the year 2015.
The figures of the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Animal Farming show that the amount of support and grants given for agriculture in the year 2014reached 10 billion liras and that the support will continue in 2015 and again approximately 10 billion liras of support will be given. The figures show that the biggest support was given in diesel with 5 billion 300 milion liras between the years 2003-2014 and fertilizer worth 5 billion liras wa also given. Minister of Food, Agriculture and Animal Farming Mehdi Eker made a presentation at the Pland Budget Commission regarding the budget of his ministry and data regarding the support, grants and agricultural loans given in the area of agriculture were also included in this presentation. According to the figures of the ministry, the amount of cash support provided to the agricultural sector is increasing everyday: the amount of agricultural support was 1 billion 868 million liras in 2002 and this figure went up to 5 billion 900 million liras in 2005 and rose to 8 billion 700 million liras in 2013. The amount of support reached 9.7 billion liras in 2014 and minister Eker announced that 10 billion liras of agricultural support would also be given to producers in 2015. Farmers were paid a total of 70 billion liras of cash grant in the 2003-2014 period.
The figures displayed the amounts of support given to hazelnut producers with diesel, fertilizer, soil analysis, organic agriculture and good agriculture. Between the years 2003-2014, the biggest support to the producers was given in diesel with 5 billion 300 million liras and in fertilizer with 5 billion liras. Area-based support payment in hazelnut reached 3.6 billion liras between the years 2010-2014 and farmers were given 295 million liras of organic agriculture and 452 milion liras of soil analysis support between the years 2009-2014.
Minister Eker indicated that premium support was given within the context of payments of differences, for which there is a shortage of suply in Turkey and which are important strategically and said that the number of products for which premium support was given has increased from 4 to 17 in the last 12 years. According to the figures, the amount of premium support was 2 billion 642 milion liras in 2013 and it will be 2 billion 900 million liras by the end of 2014 based on the calculations. Between the years 2003-2014 farmers were paid a total of 21 billion liras of premium support. According to the ministry data, animal farming subsidies were 83 million liras in 2003, they increased over time and have reached 3 billion liras. According to the figures, the amount of subsidy provided for animal farming between the years 2003-2014 was 15.2 billion liras.
According to the informaiton given by Minister Eker, a reduction of 25-100 per cent in interest was implemented in agricultural loans in 2014, depending on the activity. The amount of agricultural loans that were provided to producers was 14.3 billion liras as of October and the practice of loans with zero interest in the animal farming sector was maintained. From August 2010 when the practice started until November 2014, a total of 8.4 billion liras of loans with zero interest were orovided to 358 thousand producers. While the ratio of repayment for the loans that the producers obtained from Ziraat Bank was 38 per cent in 2002, this ratio reached 98 per cent in 2014. Also, the repayment ratio of the loans obtained from Agriculture Loan Cooperatives became 98 per cent.
