How to increase domestic production of wheat?

In order to export flour and pasta based on domestic production, which has been depended upon the import of wheat mostly from Russia, Turkey needs a big step forward in the production of wheat. For this reason, the production is required to be supported with a national agricultural policy like Russia did. A 5-10 year plan should be prepared at least.

Due to the restrictions or during crisis, Turkey’s flour and pasta export may be at risk like the one, a shot down of a warplane, between Turkey and Russia in 2015.
After the shot down of a warplane crisis, Russia laid an embargo on 24 products from Turkey. When such a crisis happens, if we cannot buy wheat, our flour and pasta export will be at risk, because we are exporting these products depending upon imported wheat. If we don’t produce wheat domestically, flour and pasta export will be at risk.
For this reason, it will be really beneficial to increase domestic production gradually. Other than that, Russia started to export flour as well as wheat. Nobody can guarantee that Russia, thanks to its advantage of raw material, won’t capture the flour market of Turkey. There are lots of examples of it. In previous years, we used to buy sunflower seeds from Ukraine and Russia. But now, they are selling raw oil instead of selling the seeds. They are processing the seeds in their own countries and by this way they are able to sell both the oil and bagasse separately. Therefore, Turkey is not only a wheat market for Russia but also the biggest sunflower bagasse buyer.
In short, while there have been debates on bread, we shouldn’t ignore what is happening about wheat, which is the centre of the issue. By increasing its wheat production, Turkey can both meet its demands and adds a big value if it can meet its flour and pasta needs with domestically produced wheat. By this way, Turkey will also increase its competitive capacity.