Ambassador of Italy to Turkey Gianpaolo Scarante met on Thursday 16 February with Minister for Turkish Agriculture and Rural Affairs Mehmet Mehdi Eker, with whom he reviewed the broad panorama of Italo-Turkish relations in the farming and food production sector.
Minister Eker pointed out the strategic importance of agriculture in the Turkish economy, despite the country’s strong industrial growth over the past two decades. That strategic importance has been further reinforced as a result of interventions that have increased agricultural production from USD23 in 2003 to today’s USD62 billion – with the same amount of land cultivated and a lower number of workers. The Minister also underscored Turkey’s agricultural abundance – with approximately 4000 of the 12,000 existing endemic plants in the world – which is one of the country’s potential strengths both from the food security standpoint as well as in terms of the development of new crops.
The Italian Ministry of Agricultural Policies and the Turkish Agriculture Ministry are to sign a memorandum of understanding aimed at establishing a network of collaboration between the two countries for the purpose of sharing experiences in the sectors of farming, food production and research.
During the meeting Ambassador Scarante illustrated the strong expectations of the Italian authorities and business community or the revival of the importation of Italian livestock, blocked since 2000. To that end, technical level consultations between respective ministries will proceed in the near future for the purpose of examining possible solutions.
