Can We Put a Stop to Seed Imports?

• Thanks to newly developed varieties, over a 15-year period total yields increased by 16% (equivalent to 1.24% per year).
• In other words, yield gains reached roughly 50% in legumes and sugar beet, and about 80% in wheat and oil crops.
• Due to new varieties, EU farmers were able to produce 22 million tons of wheat, 10 million tons of potatoes, and 3.3 million tons of rapeseed additionally each year—on top of their regular annual output.
• If these gains had not been achieved, wheat and potato prices would be about 7% higher than they are today.
• If EU breeders had not been able to develop these varieties, crop production would have been 16% lower than it is today—an increase that could feed roughly 200 million people.
• If new varieties had not been developed, the EU would need an additional 19 million hectares of agricultural land to feed its current population.
• These developments provided about 1.2 million EU farmers with an average of €7,000 in additional annual income, contributing to an estimated €14 billion increase in EU GDP.

The core principle of the seed sector is to register new genotypes—sustainably—suited to current conditions, resistant to diseases and pests, and capable of delivering high yield and quality, and then to provide these to producers as seed. Seed systems—combining plant breeding and seed marketing—are implemented differently in almost every country.

Compared to the EU seed sector summarized above, what is Turkey’s situation? In the global seed market valued at around US$45 billion, Turkish seed trade may not seem particularly prominent with approximately US$202 million in imports and US$102 million in exports (2015 data). However, the upward trend in imports is not something that can be ignored.

It is undeniable that seed imports have supported increases in agricultural production and agricultural product exports. Yet all of this could also be achieved through new varieties developed domestically.

Now let us look at the main species we import and the 2015 seed import figures (TURKSTAT 2016) ([Chart placeholder]): of our US$202 million in seed imports, US$56 million is tomato seed. Imported species such as tomato, maize, sunflower, and squash are generally hybrid (F1) types, which exhibit hybrid vigor.

Compared to non-hybrid local varieties, they offer advantages such as higher yield, better quality, and longer shelf life. Therefore, in order to compete in domestic and export markets, producers tend to prefer high-performance hybrid seeds. Since these seeds must be renewed every year, it is not surprising that producers choose them.

When we look at Turkey’s seed exports, we encounter a picture that is not particularly pride-inducing. According to 2015 data, 77% of our US$102 million in exports consists of hybrid maize and hybrid sunflower seeds produced by international companies. In this case, we can speak of only limited exports based on the ideas and labor of Turkish plant breeders.

On the other hand, it is thought-provoking that while our country ranks among the top ten agricultural product exporters, it stands at around 20th place in the ranking of seed-exporting countries. The main reason is the presence of a series of bottlenecks in Turkey regarding variety development. Our private sector entered the seed sector only in the 1980s. Given constraints in genetic material and trained human resources, reaching international competitiveness will take time.

Therefore, as in international examples,^[2] a transition to a seed system that brings together universities, the public sector, and the private sector under one umbrella appears inevitable.

Today, when we observe the efforts of seed-sector stakeholders—especially for R&D—we become hopeful. Yet our concern is “missing the forest for the trees.” Because efforts to develop new varieties for hundreds of plant species across many different use environments cannot be sustained with a series of short-term projects lasting only a few years.

For this reason, an administrative structure should be created that brings together thousands of people and unifies universities, the Ministry of Agriculture, and the private sector (and even TÜBİTAK) under one umbrella.

As the first developing country to recognize the importance of seed breeding, Brazil gathered the Ministry of Agriculture, the seed sector, and universities under the Agricultural Research Council called EMBRAPA,^[3] and achieved its agricultural “miracle” in this way. This institution helped Brazil become a global market leader in many products—and did not stop at variety development alone.

The varieties developed created such agronomic opportunities that producers gained the ability to harvest two soybean crops per year, or “wheat + soybean” in the same year—i.e., two crops per year from the same land. As of 2013, EMBRAPA had signed bilateral agreements with 89 institutions in 56 countries.

In developing new plant varieties, Germany solves its human resource challenge with a different system: universities are affiliated with the Ministry of Education and Research. Within this ministry, Germany established GABI^[4] (Plant Genome Research Program) and, through the PLANT 2030 macro project, turns “German plant research” into economic value aligned with private-sector needs.

GABI is a public–private partnership: funding primarily comes from the Ministry of Education and Research, while the private sector is represented by WPG (Business Platform Promoting GABI Plant Genome Research e.V.).

To save Turkish seed production from being import-dependent, we must solve the problem of developing new varieties and new genotypes. Under current conditions, we cannot realistically expect the private sector—limited by infrastructure, trained staff, and capital—to overcome this on its own.

It is also known that the Ministry of Agriculture’s R&D capacity has limited potential to reduce seed imports. Meanwhile, thousands of experts in universities are not being directed toward genotype development; resources are effectively wasted on “shelf research” that does not translate into outcomes.

Therefore, bringing these units together under one umbrella and addressing initiatives to reduce seed imports without delay appears unavoidable. This is only possible if all seed institutions, organizations, and stakeholders—including, first and foremost, the Agriculture Commission of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (TBMM)—take action.

Nazimi Açıkgöz

Note: This piece is summarized from the analysis titled “WE CAN PUT A STOP TO SEED IMPORTS” published at the link below.

References

1. [1] European Technology Platform report (PDF)
2. [2] International examples on how the seed sector is supported
3. [3] Brazil’s agricultural “miracle” and EMBRAPA
4. [4] GABI background / history

This article was published in the “Prof. Dr. Nazimi AÇIKGÖZ” category.