Tropentag, September 17 - 19, 2013 in Stuttgart-Hohenheim "Agricultural development within the rural-urban continuum"

Land Consolidation and Agricultural Sustainability in Turkey

¹Uludag University, Dept. of Biosystems Engineering, Turkey
²Uludag University, Dep. of Agricultural Economics, Turkey

Abstract

Land consolidation works are carried out in Turkey since the 1960s and only 10 % of agricultural lands have been consolidated. The main objective of land consolidation is to ensure rural development. Yet, in Turkey, due to the lack of monitoring and evaluation after consolidation practices, data to determine if the consolidation has resulted in expected socio-economic impacts is lacking. Land consolidation caused increases in productivity per unit area increasing size of land plots and changing the plot shape to become more suitable for modern agricultural techniques. In this context, the increase in productivity and the farmers' economic situation need to be investigated. The farm size is the key factor in the farmers' production capabilities and consequently their incomes.
The optimal size of the agricultural holdings should be known well in the region that is undergoing consolidation. Since there are different climate zones in Turkey, this size varies in every region. Mechanisms should be developed that will ensure optimum size for facilities. Insufficient facility sizes can cause economic problems in the long run.
In Turkey, lack of annual production planning causes for surpluses in some products and scarcity in others. In today's atmosphere where input prices increase more and more, farmers who lose money migrate to urban areas and find different sources of income or try to maintain production with agricultural credits. Farmers who continue to live in rural areas try to sustain agricultural production on lands that become smaller on account of inheritance laws. Therefore the survey results in villages that are planned to undergo land consolidation show that farmers request lands to be consolidated at sizes that are salable when needed, rather than combining all of the land plots.

Keywords: Evaluating, land consolidation, monitoring

Contact Address: Kemal Sulhi Gundogdu, Uludag University, Dept. of Biosystems Engineering, Ziraat Fakultesi, 16059 Bursa, Turkey, e-mail: kemalsulhigmail.com