Turkish Industry & Business Association (TUSIAD) has launched a report entitled "Inflation in the Food Sector in the Perspective of Structural Issues" on 28 September 2016.

TUSIAD is a voluntary business organization of leading entrepreneurs and executives of the business community of Turkey. On account of the institutions represented by its members, TUSIAD has a significant representative capacity of the economic activity in Turkey in many spheres.

The report "Inflation in Food Sector in the Perspective of Structural Issues" of TUSIAD aimed to assess the causes of food price inflation in Turkey, support these assessments by empirical analyses, and provide short and medium/long term solutions depending on these findings.

The "Efficiency and Inflation in the Food Sector in the Perspective of Structural Issues" conference was held for the launch of the report in İstanbul in 28 September 2016. The introduction speech of the conference was presented by the Minister of Food, Agriculture and Livestock of Turkey, Mr. Faruk Çelik and TUSIAD President Ms. Cansel Başaran-Symes. Following their speech, Head of the Competition and Regulation Department and Senior Partner of Balcıoğlu Selçuk Akman Keki (BASEAK) Attorney Partnership and professor at Bilkent University Faculty of Law Att. Şahin Ardıyok conducted a speech with TUSIAD Board Member Metin Akman entitled "To Which Structural Issues Do TUSIAD's Reports Point?"

The report firstly analyzes food price inflation trend comparatively with general level of inflation, world prices and input prices. Secondly, the structure of agriculture and food sector is explored with respect to produced value, employment, production scale, productivity, agricultural enterprises and input use, Biosafety Law and firm concentration emphasizing the effects of these structural characteristics on food prices. The third section discusses fluctuations in agricultural production, production risks, agricultural sector policies, markets under direct intervention and policy framework regarding price movements. The fourth section reviews regulatory institutions, marketing substructure, licensed warehousing and specialized product exchanges. The sixth section of the report includes empirical analyses and short and long term effects of vertically and/or horizontally located prices in the chain on agriculture and food prices. The seventh section, presents monthly and yearly projections under different scenarios.

As a result, according to the empirical analyses conducted, multiple factors were found to be effective in the increase in food prices, and these factors varied by product and sub-sectors. The report asserts that factors causing inflation in food prices and/or rendering it chronic could be classified under the titles of increasing production cost, supply gap, export supply, isolation from world markets and imperfect organizational structure in the food chain. Findings of descriptive and empirical analyses provided in the report present a multi-dimensional framework with deep problems regarding the agriculture and food sector in Turkey. At this point, the report considers that radical change of understanding towards the agriculture and food sector is necessary in order to handle these problems and cope with the high inflation rates. The report introduces the required change in understanding towards the agriculture and food sector under the titles of general agricultural support policy, support to livestock production, agricultural organizations and agricultural marketing.

In November 2014, BASEAK Competition and Antitrust team led by Şahin Ardıyok prepared a report for TUSIAD. The report is entitled "Agriculture, Food and Livestock Competitive Capacity" is a collective work of the BASEAK Competition and Antitrust team, agriculture economists, EU experts and TUSIAD representatives. The report addresses problems in food, agriculture and livestock industries and competitive capacity. The introductory presentation of the report, which is 108 pages long, discusses preliminary findings, highlights the importance of enhancing industrial competitive capacity—in order to improve the welfare of farmers—and the key role agriculture that can play in rural development. The report further draws attention to the factors such as climate change, food security, wild urbanization and the decrease in use of agricultural land due to transportation infrastructure and industrialization, which deteriorates and jeopardizes food security and competitive capacity.

The full version of the report, which is 422 pages long, first presents the role of agriculture sector regarding Turkey's and global economy. Following that, in the second section the report focuses on the agricultural infrastructure, rural development and climate change and asserts a few micro political proposals. The third section examines the sources of agricultural production (i.e land, soil, water, rural population and labour) and the relationship between the sources and food safety, requesting micro political proposals. The fourth section analyzes the structure of the agricultural markets in the perspective of Law & Economics discipline and focuses on the market failures explaining social needs and the need for the state intervention. The fifth section focuses on the Turkey – EU negotiation process regarding agriculture sector. The sixth section is mainly on the subject of plant and animal health, comparing the common practice in the USA, EU and Turkey. Following that, the report focuses on the food security concern with the micro political proposals in order to assure food security in the seventh section. Research and development, innovation and education are assessed in the eighth section. The ninth section examines the governance and civil participation regarding agriculture sector.

The report entitled "Inflation in the Food Sector in the Perspective of Structural Issues" launched in 2016 can be accessed by clicking here: http://tusiad.org/tr/basin-bultenleri/item/8913-yapisal-sorunlar-perspektifinden-verimlilik-ve-gida-enflasyonu-konferansi-28-eylul-2016

The introductory presentation of the report entitled "Agriculture, Food and Livestock Competitive Capacity" (2014) can be accessed by clicking here: http://tusiad.org/tr/yayinlar/raporlar/item/8152-gida-tarim-ve-hayvancilik-rekabet-gucu-temel-bulgular

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