Reducing Food Waste
In the OIC Member Countries
COMCEC
Table 5: The most self-sufficient agricultural products in 2014
Product Self-sufficiency
Fig 720%
Apricot 526%
Grape fruit 297%
Lemon 262%
Mandarin 235%
Nuts (total) 173%
Pomegranate 159%
Source: TURKSTAT (2016)
Agricultural activities' contribution to the Turkish economy
Agriculture is among the most important sectors in the Turkish economy in terms of
employment. Its contribution to total GDP proves its significance for the country although it
increasingly declined due to developments in the industry sector (European Commission, 2003).
In fact, Turkey’s agricultural economy was the 8th largest agricultural economy in the world in
2014. Also, agriculture has an important share in the foreign trade of the country considering
that 14% of the total exports is supplied by agriculture (European Commission, 2013).
While the share of agriculture is 42,8% in gross national product (GNP) in the year when Turkey
was established, it has decreased proportionally to 36% in 1970, 25% in 1980, 16% in 1990,
13,5% in 2000, 12.6%in 2003, 8.3% in 2009 and finally 7.4% in 2013 (FAO, 2013). Like the
reason of decreasing population in rural areas, the sharp decrease in the share of agriculture in
GNP can be explained by the developments in industrialization and service sector. Yet,
agricultural production value of Turkey was about 41 billion $ in 2013 (Turkish Journal of
Agricultural & Natural Sciences, 2014).
During the time-period between 2007 and 2013, a partial increase happened in the share of
agricultural employment in total employment, and it reached to 24%. In 2013, the number of
people employed in agricultural sector was 6 million (Ministry of Food, Agriculture and
Livestock, 2014). However, looking at Table 6, it is possible to see a decline in the number of
population employed in agriculture. In May, 2016, the number of people employed in the
agriculture sector decreased to 5,540,000, which accounts for 20% of total employed
population.
Table 6: Figures of Total Employment and Employment in Agriculture
Year Month Total
(1,000 persons)
Agriculture
(1,000 persons)
Agriculture
2016 January 26,275 4,812 18%
2016 February 26,456 4,876 18%
2016 March 26,993 5,093 19%
2016 April 27,638 5,352 19%
2016 May 27,867 5,540 20%
Source: TURKSTAT(2016)
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