Transfers to agricultural producers in Turkey since the 1980s have comprised an important but decreasing share of farm revenues, from a high of 31% in the 1990s to about 15% in recent years. Most of this support has been through influencing the market price of agricultural products. Measures to address the COVID-19 pandemic drove changes in the composition of support in 2020. These measures increased the producer support estimate (PSE) from an average of 15% in 2017-19 to almost 20% in 2020 – albeit still below the 24% PSE observed 2000-02.
Concessional loans increased sharply in 2020, bringing payments based on variable input use to almost half of total PSE, reversing the downward trend in total support as a share of GDP. Other interest concessions also grew, increasing payments based on fixed capital formation by a factor of four from the previous year.
Market price support (MPS) is provided mainly for sunflower, potatoes and beef, in the form of reductions of exporters’ debts to public corporations. MPS trended lower in recent years. This is a consequence of higher world prices following the COVID-19 pandemic, and continued depreciation of the Turkish Lira. MPS was estimated to make up 54% of the PSE on average during 2018-20, compared with 78% in 2000-02.
Support to general services (GSSE) mainly comprises irrigation infrastructure, duty write-offs and equity injections connected to commodity marketing agencies. At 2.6% of Turkey’s agricultural value-added on average for 2018-20, expenditures on general services relative to the sector’s size are below those in many OECD countries.
Total support to the sector was as high as 4% of GDP until 2000-02, but declined as the importance of agriculture in the overall economy diminished. Total support to agriculture was about 1.4% of GDP in 2018‑20.