The World Bank approved a $341.27 million loan to Turkey to support a more sustainable and competitive agricultural sector and promote the use of climateâ€smart technologies and practices in several provinces in the country.
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The Turkey Climate Smart and Competitive Agricultural Growth Project (TUCSAP) will help improve the collection and use of information on soil and land covering nearly 14 million hectares, enhance animal disease surveillance and diagnostic capabilities, and boost technology adoption to improve resource efficiency and reduce harmful carbon emissions.
The project will directly benefit over 80,000 farmers, service providers and veterinarians. Beyond these direct beneficiaries, the project will have broader impacts across Turkey through availability of relevant sectoral data reaching a wider set of stakeholders, as well as via improvements in animal health services, benefiting farmers and businesses across Turkey.
More broadly, the TUCSAP project will contribute to long-term sustainable growth of the agricultural sector, provide job opportunities for youth, contribute to preventing out-migration and, ultimately, improve prosperity in rural areas.
Additionally, project activities should contribute to enhancing working conditions for women in the agriculture sector.
Agricultural output in Turkey has increased significantly in recent years, with exports of agri-food products rising to about $20.7 billion in 2020, representing about 10 percent of national exports. The sector accounts for 6.6 percent of Turkey’s economy and employs about 18 percent of the labor force.
However, it faces important productivity challenges as growth in agricultural output has been driven primarily by input intensification and far less by improvements in resource-use efficiency and technological adoption.
As a result, agricultural expansion is creating significant environmental and climate pressures as the sector is a large and inefficient user of land, water, and energy, and generates 13.4 percent of the country’s total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
On the other hand, the agriculture sector is impacted by climate events such as droughts, floods and wildfires. ■