Turkey Leaps Forward in Seed Production, Becomes Exporter: Good News for D-8 Seed Bank Cooperation

Istanbul, Turkey | June 01, 2009 by D-8 Secretariat

Turkish companies have now become competent enough to handle global competition with even the largest foreign seed companies

With major investments and the adoption of the most advanced technologies, Turkey, which was importing 95 percent of its seed needs from abroad until just five years ago, has become a seed exporter.

Even Israel, which has a very advanced seed production sector, is among the 20 countries that Turkish seed producers count as customers. Turkic republics in Central Asia and Middle Eastern countries are also among Turkey’s customers, along with a few countries in Europe. In an interview with Today’s Zaman on the sidelines of the two-day World Seed Congress in Antalya, which started yesterday, Turkish Seed Industry Association (TÜRK-TED) President Dr. Mete Kömeağaç stressed the importance of Turkey’s declining dependence on foreign seed producers in recent years.

Kömeağaç said domestic seed production has been on the rise steadily for the last couple of years. There have been serious developments in the sector, especially in terms of hybrid vegetable seeds, which are produced by artificially cross-pollinated plants and are bred to give the resulting plants better yield, greater uniformity, improved color and disease resistance, he said. Kömeağaç said the use of locally produced seeds in the domestic market has increased from 5 percent to 35 percent over the past five years, adding that they hope to bring this figure to 65 percent with research and development support from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs. Locally produced hybrid seeds have seen significant demand from abroad, too, Kömeağaç noted, adding that Turkish companies have now become competent enough to handle global competition with even the largest foreign companies that have been in the market for more than 100 years.

According to the information provided by Kömeağaç, the total revenue of the global seed market is around $35 billion annually and $8 billion of this amount is from the international trade. The US, France, Italy and the Netherlands are the primary countries that steer the global seed market. Turkey ranks 15th in the international seed trade. With investments in recent years, the size of Turkey’s seed market has risen to over $450 million. Its overall volume of foreign trade, on the other hand, is $150 million, with $90 million in imports and $60 million in exports.

Kömeağaç emphasized that if the country’s current liberal policies are protected, Turkey’s total seed market will reach $1 billion by 2020.

D-8 will have D-8 Seed Bank Working Committe Meeting in Izmir, Turkey, on 21-24 July 2009 to look into the problems and challenges in detail in order to establish modalities of a downstream tri-level seed bank within D-8 countries.

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