Raporlar

Demographic Changes in Turkey’s Farmers

• 24.04.2017
• Yazar:Dursun Yıldız
• (0) Yorum
• 821

About the Preliminary Report We as Hydro politics Association are continuing to study on climate change impacts on water security and food security. We prepared a preliminary report in relation with the project titled “Awareness and Adaptation Study to Climate Change in Agricultural Sector.” The number of people living in cities has risen by a factor of almost 3 since 1950, from 20 million to about 60 million. Urbanization is the most visible manifestation of settlement dynamics. This phenomenon is no longer only fed by rural migrations; the number of people born in cities has exceeded the number of people arriving from rural areas. Younger generation born in rural area clearly prefer to live in cities and leave from agricultural production. As urbanization has advanced, a growing proportion of farmers have had to produce surplus to meet the demand from increasing numbers of non-producing consumers This new situation   needs to be seen in the context of demographic challenge and its inherent structural changes, with proportionally less and less producers per consumer. Preferring to live in cities and the market opportunities created by urbanization are the main driving forces behind these changes in the rural economy. Accompanying these dynamics is crucial for current and future food challenges. This is a major factor endangering the future of village life in Turkey. Therefore, Turkish Government decided to support young farmers to bring back to their own village. The first Return to Village Project has started in 2005. Turkish Government has also decided to grant up to TL 30 000 to be provided to young farmers on a project basis on March 2016. All these projects show that Turkish Government is aware of the problems and try to take necessary measures. In this context we decided to investigate the situation together with Turkish Irrigation Cooperatives on the base of a project called “Demographic and Structural Changes in Turkish Agricultural Workforce “ At the first stage of the project, a face to face survey has been completed in the symposium hold by Central Union of the Irrigation Cooperatives of Turkey in 04-08 December 2016. Applied Research Center of the Hydropolitics Association is responsible for the Project. This prelimenaray report includes first results from the survey. Detailed evaluation of the results are are carried out  in the Applied Research Center  of HPA. Sincerely Dursun Yıldız President 19  April 2017-ANKARA-Turkey   to read the full report please click on REPORT