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Agrarian reform and land use policy in Turkey
Agrarian reform and land use policy in Turkey implications for the Southeast Anatolia Project
Behrooz Morvaridi
Many countries have adopted agrarian reform programmes which distinguish between the intensification of farming through technical change and land reform. Yet both come within agrarian reform and they should be seen as complementary to each other rather than as alternatives. This article addresses the implications of Turkish agrarian reform for the Southeast Anatolia Project (GAP). GAP is the fourth largest irrigation project in the world and its long-term objective is to reduce regional disparity by developing the Southeast. The agrarian structure of Southeast Anatolia and the government’s past and present policies towards agriculture may influence GAP’s potential success. The author is Associate Professor at the Eastern Mediterranean University and can be contacted at 12 Coleridge Court, 81 TEpuKoad, New Barnet, Her& EN5
‘B. Morvaridi, ‘Gender and labour: cash crops in Kars’, in P. Stirling, ed, Culrure and Economy: Changes in Turkish Villages, SOAS, London: UK, forthcoming. *K. Griffin, Alternative Strateaies for Economic Development, OECD Development Centre/Macmillan, London, UK, 1989. 3Food and Agriculture Organization, Forty Years After, FAO, Rome, Italy, 1988, p 35.
0264-8377/90/040303-11
Conventional land reform involves the expropriation and redistribution of land by legal means, such as tenancy legislation. Many countries adopted land reform policies during the 1950s and 1960s - Egypt 1952-70, Iran 1962-72, India 1950s Turkey 1945-50 and 1973 onwards although they differed widely in structure and implementation. Most of the policies were aimed at enlarging average farm size and hence income per capita in rural areas by redistributing land to agricultural workers with insufficient land. Land reform was perceived as a way of achieving production efficiency and/or equity in distribution of agricultural resources. However, the majority of land reform policies effectively failed to achieve their optimum and fulfil socioeconomic and political expectations. Furthermore, no land reform programme has adequately addressed the problem of women’s rights to landownership.’ United Nations publications indicate that women undertake nearly two-thirds of all working hours, receive only 10% of world income and own less than 1% of world property. Since the 1960s the green revolution - the intensification of agriculture through technological innovation - has been regarded as an alternative to land reform.* Technical change explores the use of capital-intensive inputs in farming, focusing on input-output substitution. Governments have been concerned to intensify land use and increase production given that all possible arable land is under cultivation. The global area of arable land has hardly been expanded in the last 30 years and any increase tends to be at the expense of the environment, such as in the case of Brazilian forests, or onto unsuitable soils. Two-thirds of increased production in the 1950s was the result of area extension, but only half in the 1960s and a quarter in the last two decades.’ The world’s population has almost doubled since 1960, but the area of arable land has increased by only 10%. Technical development, therefore, has played the major role in the expansion of food production to support a growing world population.
0 1990 Butterworth-Heinemann
Ltd
303
Table 1. Land distribution by household and size of holding.
Size (ha)
Number of holdings (thousands)
% total
Total area (ha x 10’)
% total area
l-4 5-Q
2175 730
61.1 20.6
45 556 46 392
20.3 21.3
11.6 6.7 0.7 0.1
54 245 52 067 17056 9 502
23.8 22.6 7.0 4.1
10-19 20-49 Source: State Instituteof Statistics.Census of Agriculture, SIS, Ankara,Turkey, 1960.
4M.Lipton,
New Seeds and Poor People,
Unwin Hyman, London, UK, 1989. ‘Griffin, op tit, Ref 2. 6O. Varlier, Structural Change, Technology and Land Distribution in Turkish Agriculture, State Planning Organization, Ankara, Turkey, 1978, p 307; World Bank, tndustrialization and Trade Policy, World Bank,
Washington, DC, USA, 19g2, p 293. ‘R. Aktan, ‘Problems of land reform in Turkey’, The Middle Eastern Journal, Vol 20, No 3, 1966, p 320.
304
50-99
100+
422 221 26 3
With the intensification of farming, crop production has tripled in the last 20 years. Yield per hectare has risen as a direct result of new technology. Large and small farmers alike are encouraged to operate with capital-intensive inputs, but small farmers very often lack access to such inputs. As a result, their productivity is low and their purchasing power weak, leaving many small farmers dependent 00 labour income for food consumption.4 Despite government assistance in the form of subsidies (on fertilizers, machinery, etc) larger farmers continue to have greater access to inputs, thus marginalizing smaller holdings. If subsidies do not always reach the smaller farmer, the implication is that not only has land reform policy failed, but the intensification of farming has also failed to improve the plight of small farmers in the developing world, To date the two policies have tended to be employed independently of each other, neither providing sufficient conditions for substantial and sustained growth. This implies that the ‘two approaches are best seen as complementary to one another, not as alternatives’.5 In the case of Turkey, with its population growth rate of around 2.5% per annum, the intensification of agriculture has been relatively successful in increasing production. Land reform, on the other hand, has been considered but not widely adopted, even though both land reform and the technical advance of farming remain within the government’s policy of agrarian reform. In contrast to other developing countries such as India, Pakistan and Iran, Turkish agriculture has never undergone a completed land reform programme. Although land reform and the appropriate government bills have been proposed in Turkey, implementation has not been fully realized. Table 1 shows that more than 80% of farmers in Turkey own less than 10 ha of land and therefore work small farms. It is difficult to estimate the number of landless farmers because landlessness varies between regions: between 20% and 30% of total households in the southern regions and between 5% and 10% in the northern.6 Since the foundation of the Turkish Republic (1923) three attempts have been made to redistribute land to small farmers. In the 1920s a new civil code was introduced to repeal Ottoman law. In terms of landownership, this signified the dismantling of the miri system, which conferred authority over 40% of all arable land upon the state. Private landownership was encouraged to take its place and state land was distributed to the landless and immigrants from the Balkans. This first attempt at land reform did not address the question of large-scale redistribution of land from large landowners to the poor or landless, or the question of women’s rights to property. Only in 1946 did the Ministrv , of Aericulture Dresent a bill to the state assemblv, calline for 1 the redistribution of state lands and land from large, private landlords (those owning over 50 ha) to those who had ‘insufficient’ land.’ It aroused strong opposition from landowners, who succeeded in modifyLAND USE POLICY
October
1990
Agrarian
reform
and land use policy in Turkq,
ing the bill which was sdbsecmently passed as the Land Reform Law. It
is estimated that 1.8 million ha of state land were parcelled out amongst 360 000 families between 1947 and 1962. Hardly any private land was redistributed. Increasing landlessness became apparent in the 1970 Survey of Agriculture. Under the rationale that land was unsuitably distributed for sufficient economic production, the government decided to redistribute 3.2 million ha to 540 000 households, thereby providing land for landless farmers or those with extremely small holdings with the intention of raising per capita incomes.x In fact only 230 000 ha were distributed to 1218 landless and smallholding families over the three year period up to 1978 (18.9 ha per family).” To summarize, the Turkish government has failed to implement significant land reform. It might be argued that, in the 199Os, redistribution is no longer the key issue for the government and that land consolidation should take preference in planning programmes. This may be so in some regions of Turkey, but it cannot be denied that there remains a need for land reform in regions such as Southeast Anatolia where, despite poor social conditions, market forces have already shaped the pattern of agriculture.
State policy and agricultural commercialization Two phases agriculture: 0 0
‘Agrarian Reform Secretariat, SPO, Ankara, Turkey, 1975. “Turkey into the 1990s’. Economic Intelligence Unit, Economist Publication Ltd. London, 1989. loState Institute Statistics, Agricultural Structural Production, SIS, Ankara, Turkey, 1988, p 122. “State Institute Statistics, Summary of Agricultural Statistics, SIS, Ankara, Turkey, 195040. “8. Morvaridi, ‘Strategies of households in the production of cash/food crops’, in T. Marsden and J. Little, eds, The food Chain and Rural Responses, Gower, Aldershot, UK, 1990.
can be seen in Turkey’s
LAND USE POLICY
October
1990
as regards
1950-60: mechanical innovation (eg introduction of tractors) and the expansion of arable land; 1960- : biological innovation and the intensification of land use.
Turkish agriculture underwent a major transformation in the 1950s as a result of state intervention and technical change supported by US aid. The number of tractors in use increased from 1658 in 1948 to 40 282 in 1955, reaching 637 449 in 1987.“’ The government provided credit on easy terms to enable small farmers to buy tractors and other agricultural inputs. In addition to mechanical innovation, the area under crop cultivation increased by 50% between 1948 and 1950 (Table 2) and by 61.5% between 1948 and 1960. This expansion was at the expense of marginal and pastural land. Agricultural productivity increased with the expansion of the area under crop cultivation. A fourfold growth in agricultural production was reported by the State Institute of Statistics, indicating a major change in Turkish agriculture.” However, yield per hectare remained fairly constant throughout the 195Os.‘* Since by the 1960s the physical expansion of arable land reached its limit, a rise in agricultural production was no longer possible unless yield per hectare could be Table 2. Land use in Turkey, 1946-87
Source: State Institute of Statistics, Summary or Agricolluraal Statistics, SE, Ankara, Turkey, 1965, 1967, 1984; State Institute Statistics, Agricultural Structure and Production, SE, Ankara, Turkey, 1988.
land use policy
Crop area Fallow land Pasture and meadow Vegetables Fruit gardens Olives Forest
(ha x 1O3).
1948
1955
1980
1970
1980
1967
9477 4 423 38 330
14 205 6 793 31 009
15 306 7 959 28 658
476 10 418
16372 8186 11743 616 1 352 013 20 199
18 781 5 574
735 540 10584
15 591 6 703 445 1019 731 18 273
277 10418
609 1 517 656 20199
305
increased. Further agricultural production was vital to meet an ever growing demand: the government had calculated that the population was likely to increase by 2.9% per annum, that per capita consumption would increase by 2.4% and that there would be considerable growth in domestic industries.” Due to the inelastic supply of land, evident since the 196Os, priority has been given to increasing production through intensive production methods. With the establishment of the State Planning Organization (SPO) in 1961, priority in agricultural development policies was given to diversification and intensification.14 Agriculture was organized to support the government’s economic policy of industrial expansion and thus crops included in the import substitution policy, such as sugar beet and cotton, saw the greatest increase in area of cultivation and output. Between 1960 and 1987 the area under wheat cultivation increased by 25%, whereas wheat production increased by 123.6%. and the area under sugar beet rose by almost 80% with production rising by 205.8%. Production of fruits and vegetables more than doubled in the same period. A major concern since 1960 has been to draw production away from the level of small subsistence households towards market-oriented production.” Thus more emphasis has been given to the cultivation of commercial crops such as vegetables, cotton and sugar beet. To achieve this, the SPO programme encourages rural households to use yieldincreasing inputs such as improved irrigation systems, high-yielding varieties (HYVs) of seeds, fertilizers and pesticides, more tractors and other farm machinery (see Table 3). In 1965 only 11% of total rural households applied chemical fertilizers to their crops, but by 1980 68% were using fertilizers. ” In real terms, 295 300 tons of fertilizers were applied in 1962 and 8977.3 million tons in 1987. Today around 60% of arable lands are fertilized.17 ‘%tate Planning Organization, First Five Year Plan, SPO, Ankara, Turkey, 1963, p
Subsidies and support prices
110.
The increased use of fertilizers was a direct result of the government’s policy of subsidizing prices, distributing the commercial product belowcost directly to farmers and cooperatives, and providing credit at subsidized rates to enable small farmers to purchase them. As a result fertilizer prices were kept low and declined in real terms. By 1979 subsidies on fertilizers amounted to 60-80% of production cost.IX Another major technological development has been an increase in privately owned tractors, with the number of tractors growing rapidly at around 12% a year in the past two decades.” With government subsidies tractors were sold to farmers for less than production cost.” As a result of the increasing use of capital inputs in agriculture the incremental capital-output ratio rose from 1.9 in 1966 to 4.0 in 1978.”
j41bid, pp 20 and 31. “‘The Fourth Five Year Development Plan’, SPO, Ankara, Turkey, 1977, p 53. ‘%tate Institute of Statistics, Census of Agricu/fure, SIS, Ankara, Turkey, 1965 and 1980. ‘%IS, op cif, Fief 10, p 98. ‘8World Bank, op tit, Ref 6, p 302.
‘world
Bank, Agricultural Mechanizafion,
World Bank, Washington, DC, USA, 1987, p 17. 2oOECD, Regional Problems and Policies in Turkey, OECD, Paris, France, 1988, p ilp&orM Bank, op tit, Ref 6.
Table 3. Modern agricultural inpuls, 1950-87. Area under cultivation YeW 1950 1962 1965 Source: State Institute of Statistics. AgricuMural 1970 Structure and Production, SIS. Ankara, Turkey, 1975 1988; SIS, Economic Repoti. SIS. Ankara, Tur1980 key, 1988: SIS. Summary of Agricultural Srafis- 1987 tics, SIS,Ankara, Turkey, 1968.
306
(ha x 103)
Tr8CtOrS
14542 23215 23556 24295 24418 24560 24355
16585 43747 54666 105865 243066 436369 637449
WtitS
Fertilizers (tons x 103) 295.3 802.8 2217.3 3691.0 5 967.5 8 977.3
LAND USE POLICY October 1990
Agrarian
**B. Morvaridi, ‘Cash crop production and the process of transformation’, Develop mend and Chancre. Vol 21, No 4, 1990. pp 693-722. 23Turkey’s Ministry of State divides the country’s agricultural regions into: Central North, Aegean, Marmara, Mediterranean, Northeast, Southeast, Black Sea, Central East, Central South.
LAND USE POLICY October 1990
and land use policy
in Turkey
Unprecedented commercialization of agriculture entails costly inputs. In view of the landownership pattern of small farmers in Turkey the majority of farmers are not in a position to buy modern, yield-increasing inputs and new technology. The income of cultivators who have less than 10 ha of land, ie 82% of rural households in Turkey, is insufficient to buy capital inputs and consumer goods unless supplemented by government subsidies. This implies that the widespread consumption of manufacturing goods is only possible through government intervention. State agencies not only intervene in agriculture by distributing inputs and providing credit, but they are also directly involved in marketing crops. Crops are purchased from the farmers by state agencies at subsidized prices to be sold to consumers at support prices. There are a number of government agencies, each of which is responsible for regulating the marketing and the pricing of a particular crop. The market price of agricultural goods is fixed through a price support policy in order to guarantee floor prices and thereby encourage the production of agricultural commodities. A substantial change in the government’s attitude to subsidies became apparent in the 1980s partly in reaction to a rising national debt problem and the adoption of structural adjustment policies. To control inflation and reduce the balance of payments deficit a stabilization programme was introduced. A tight monetary policy was put into operation, resulting in a reduction in public-sector expenditure which included farmers’ subsidies. 22 Plans to integrate farmers fully into the market mechanism and ease their dependence on the state arose out of the government’s new export-oriented policy. An appropriate question to ask at this point is whether the application of new technologies and the above policies have improved yield per hectare? The introduction of HYVs appears to have brought about some increase in yield for a number of major crops in the past three decades. Between 1960 and 1980 yield per hectare increased by 85% for wheat, by 60% for sugar beet, and by 55% for cotton. Increased production of cotton is due to a number of factors, not just inputs. It is produced in areas of Turkey which are considered to have the richest infrastructure. The Aegean and the Mediterranean regions, for example, both have modern irrigation systems, factories and roads as well as the highest proportion of tractors.*” The production of other crops has improved due to the high application of fertilizers by farmers, facilitated both by the increased domestic production of manufactured fertilizers and government subsidies assisting farmers to purchase them. Overall yield per hectare has increased, but there is considerable variation on a regional level (Table 4). Table 4. Agricultural
%eans, peas, lentils, etc; bOnions, potatoes. Source: World Bank, 1983.
reform
yields by region, 1978-60.
Region
Cemels (kg/-pit@
Central East Northeast
I 424 1090
Southeast
I 250
North Central South Central Mediterranean Marmara Aegean Black Sea Turkey
Pulses*
Tuber crop@
wwm
I 124
I2 933 13 623 I2 657
30663 20 495 13 141
1064 1 826 2 329 2683 2263 1650
1069 1143 1 207 1060 1 259 I 171
14 983 I7405 14205 16961 18022 11 154
29906 31 907 26 450 36366 32 913 27 936
I 829
1 126
I5 176
29636
Table 4 shows lower yields in the eastern regions compared to others, which would imply that per capita income is lower in these areas. In recent years the state has intervened to reduce differences between regions. In the Southeast this has taken the form of heavy investment in infrastructure and irrigation projects. The Southeast Anatolia Project (GAP) has been central to the government’s development plan.
Southeast Anatolia
*@Regional Problems and Policies in Turkev’. OECD. Paris. 1988. 255t&e Planning drganization, Southeast Anatolian Project (GAP), SPO, Ankara, Turkey, 1989. *qaylan Dericioglu, ‘Southeastern Anatolian Project (GAP)‘, lsfanbul Chamber of Commerce, No 85, 1989. *“Agricultural Structure and Production’, State Institute of Statistics, Ankara, Turkey, 1988. **C. Keyder, ‘The cycle of sharecropping and consolidation of small peasant ownership in Turkey’, Journal of Peasant Studies, Vol X, 1983, pp 34-49.
Southeast Anatolia, classified as ‘less developed’, is the poorest region in Turkey.24 Table 5 shows comparative indicators between Turkey and the Southeast; 8.5% of the Turkish populatiQn (4 303 567 people) live in the region, 49.9% of whom live in urban areas. The average population density is 58/km2, below the national average of 65/km2. The agricultural sector employs 70% of the labour force. Of the nine provinces of the Southeast, six will be directly affected by the GAP Gaziantep, Diyarbakir, Sanliurfa, Mardin, Adiyaman and Siirt, bordering Iraq and Syria and covering 73 863km’. All six provinces of the region are considered to be areas of out migration, yet the average annual population growth in the past two decades has remained around 2.9%, which is higher than the national average of 2.4%.2” The dependency ratio of the population is high: 47% of the population are economically active, 50% are under 15 years of age and 3% are over 64. The ethnicity of the people is Kurdish and some continue to live a traditional nomadic life. The region has a dry, continental climate, with average annual temperatures in the range of 14.5-18.1”C and maximums of 21.232.O”C. Average annual precipitation ranges from 473.1 to 835.4 mm. Between June and September there is no rain. Dry farming currently dominates in the region, and wheat is the major crop.‘h Crop cultivation covers 42% of land, 85% of which is dry farming land, 4% is under irrigation, and the remainder is devoted to horticulture. Ninety-one percent of farmers are engaged in mixed farming, cultivating crops and raising livestock, with the latter the main source of income. Southeast Anatolia is the third largest agricultural region in Turkey, accounting for 13.3% of the total cultivated land. However, only 3.9% of Turkey’s tractors are found in the Southeast which compares unfavourably with other regions such as the Aegean, which accounts for only 9.8% of the national area under cultivation but 19.9% of all tractors.27 It is estimated that around only 5% of Turkey’s 36 000 villages are engaged in large-scale capitalist farming and a high proportion (32%) are found in the Southeast. 2x This is a distinguishing feature of the region in a country characterized by small family-farm units. There are a Table 5. Comparison Index
Note: Numbers in parentheses have negative values. Soufce: State Institute of Statistics, Statistical Year Book ol Turkey. SIS, Ankara, Turkey, 1967.
308
selected indices,
1965.
Turkey
GAP region
GAP as 56 oi Turkey
779 50 664 2.4 65 53
73 4 303 2.9 56 49.9
17.7 25.2 1 622
39.6 11.7 662
of the GAP region and Turkey by
Land area (km’) Total population (x 103) Population growth, 1965-65 (%) Population density (km*) Urban population (% total) Economic structure (% in GDPIGRP) Agriculture Manufacturing Per capita GDPIGRP
9.5 6.5
(9.0) (1.9) (47)
LAND USE POLICY October 1990
Agrarian
reform
and Iund use policy in Turkey
number of villages in which only one or relatively few families possess all cultivated land, with the landownership of some families extending beyond the boundaries of one village alone. There are 231 families and 96 extended families who own whole villages, known as ‘landlord villages’. This pattern of landownership has been consistent over time. Any transformation of the relations of production has largely been stimulated by technical change and the commercialization of farming. Land reform in the area has been of little significance. The ideal size for a family holding would be between 7 and 25 ha, but to achieve such a redistribution of land has not even been considered. The fact that 38% of households are landless (including nomads) testifies to the absence of land redistribution in the region. Agricultural work remains the main source of income for the landless, but they tend to work the land as sharecroppers for absentee landlords or wage labourers for large holdings. They have less access to machinery, fertilizers, circulating capital and marketing. Sharecropping for absentee landlords is equated with low productivity in this region. This inefficiency reflects a lack of incentive. Substantial sharecropping relates to a high degree of unequal land distribution and results in an increasing number of people with no direct title to land at all. Sharecropping also reflects the tendency for large holdings to be fragmented into workable plots of land. The management of large holdings is problematic and in this region large areas of land are often left fallow each year. This creates a major obstacle for agricultural development. Low productivity is the net result of the area’s agrarian structure. Although 70% of the labour force are accounted for by the agricultural sector, it makes a relatively low contribution (44%) to the revenue of the region compared with the service sector (37%) and industry (19%). (Petroleum extraction and refining is the region’s main industry.) The socioeconomic structure of this region can be summarized as follows. A traditional social structure persists along with dispersed settlement patterns and uneven landownership, with a high proportion of landless farmers. Major socioeconomic variables - education and training, health and medical services - are at a low level. The underdeveloped nature of Southeast Anatolia is the result of noncomplementary state policies in the region, the absence of land reform and institutionalized reform.
GAP
?State Planning Organization,Southeastern Anatolia Project Master Plan Study, Final Master Plan Report, Vol 1, Executive Summary, 1989.
LAND USE POLICY
October
1990
The State Planning Organization established the Department of LessDeveloped Regions in order to give priority to the Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia regions. The Southeast Anatolia Project (GAP), which comes under the auspices of the SPO, is seen as an integrated regional development programme related to national development strategies.29 Planning practice has by tradition been highly centralized in Turkey, but the planning of GAP is decentralized to the regional level. The main objective of the GAP project is to reduce regional inequality, ensuring economic growth and social stability in the region. It aims to mobilize regional resources, increase productivity and income per capita and create employment opportunities. The extent to which this can meet with success depends on complementary policies of land reform and the intensification of agriculture. GAP is the fourth largest irrigation scheme in the world (Figure 1). It
309
schemes in the Southeastern
SYHIA
-
Pumped Scheme
Staye
Summary,
Project.
Scheme
__,._..r..,.,.
Bank
Anatolia
1st
Rqht
Anatolia Project Master Plan Study, Final Master Plan Report, Vol 1, Executive
1. Location of water resource development
Source: Southeastern
Figure
Scheme
Dlcle
1989.
I
Dlcle
Bank
txlstlrlg schemes
Right
,rr,g,Jt,cr,
Scheme Nusaybin-Clzre-ldtl
Scheme
Agrarian
reform
und Iund use policy in Turkq,
consists of 13 projects for irrigation, 21 dams and 17 hydroelectric energy plants built on the Euphrates and Tigris river basin.3” The Ataturk dam is the largest project of GAP, consisting of two diversion tunnels of 26 km each. It is expected that. on completion, GAP will enable 1.7 million ha to be irrigated, approximately 50% of the total irrigated area in Turkey (see Table 6). Turkey’s current electricity production will be doubled, with a capacity equal to seven large nuclear power plants (1200 megawatts).” The total investment cost of the entire project is estimated to be $1.9 billion (which may reach US$20 given current exchange rates). The project is in three phases. Phase 1 (up to 1994) involves preparation, completion of on-going projects, improvements in urban water supply, and improvements in infrastructure and communication between the major cities (Figure 2). Phase 2 (19952004) includes completion of all hydropower and irrigation schemes, intensification of farming and the expansion of agroindustries. The final phase (2005 onwards) aims to ensure the stable and sustained growth of all sectors of the economy.
Implications
The GAP project is an example of state-supported technical change. The government’s policy is to encourage large-scale intensive farming in order to develop agroindustries, such as food processing, in the region. The intensification of commodity relations in agriculture continues to be an integrated part of the overall economic strategy. The cultivation of commercial crops such as cotton, soya beans, oil seeds, sunflowers, feed grains, fruit and vegetables has been encouraged in the Southeast, and
3olbid.
3’OECD,
of agrarian reform for GAP
op tit, Ref 20, p 50.
Corridor
ccIRRIDOR
Figure 2. Development
corridors
and phasing in the Southeast
A
Anatolia
0X
development
Population
ordering
in
phases
of
corridor
Project.
Source: see Figure 1.
LAND USE POLICY
October
1990
311
Agrurh
reform urrd Iutrd use policy
itr Turkey Table 6. Importance
Sources: State Planning Organization, SPO. Ankara, Turkey; OECD, Regional Problems and Policies in Turkey, OECD. Paris, 1966.
of the Southeast
Irrigated land (ha x 106) Capacity electricity (MgW x 106) Production (G Kwh)
Anatolia Project.
Turkey (1986)
GAP when completed
Ratio ot GAP to Turkey on completion
3.7 10.1 39.7
1.7 7.6 22.0
46% 75% 55%
the government has even gone so far as to offer incentives to foreign companies to invest in agriculture-oriented industries in the region. The development of agroindustry in the region may be successful but, given its prevailing socioeconomic structure, an even greater degree of economic differentiation may arise unless complementary policies which address the issues of both land reform and technical change are implemented. The development of large-scale agroindustry may transform production relations at the village and household level, by attracting the large number of landless sharecroppers to work as wage labourers in industry. However, considering the slow pace of investment in the region, it is unlikely that industries will develop fast enough to absorb the labour force released from agriculture or the landless. This implies that the state should consider the position of small farmers and the landless now, in the early stages of the project’s development. The large-scale infrastructural and irrigation projects of GAP will have a significant impact on the people and socioeconomy of the Southeast. But this relationship is not one-way. It has been implied that the current agrarian structure may place constraints on the success of the GAP project. Neither technical change nor land reform have taken into account the position of women in agriculture, even though the process of commoditization is reliant on a sexually differentiated labour process. Women’s participation in the agricultural production process is extensive when farming units are based on the family household. With the development of agroindustry, one might believe that women would have the opportunity to break from the mould of unpaid family labour to become wage labourers. This is unlikely in the Southeast, however, since women are restricted to the boundaries of their villages by patriarchal traditions. What may prove to be of significance, however, is the change in cultural restrictions placed on women who are rarely permitted to be household heads or to exercise their property rights, once men enter the industrial labour market and leave women to play a more active role in agricultural production.
Conclusion Turkish agriculture has reached the stage where farmers are dependent to a considerable degree on state intervention in the form of price support policies and subsidies. It appears that unless the government continues to pursue an interventionist policy the income of the majority of farmers will have little chance of stabilizing at a reasonable level. Even with the current measures offered by the government to develop and assist intensification, many small farmers face financial crises. Income per capita remains low in the agricultural sector and compares unfavourably with that of industry. Why do government policies fall short of their long-term objectives? Subsidies and price support may indeed assist farmers with largeholdings, since they can afford to take advantage of government credit and 312
LAND USE POLICY
October
1990
Agrarian
reform
and land use policy ill Turkey
subsidies on capital inputs. However, given the pattern of small-sized holdings and the fragmented distribution of land in many areas of Turkey, a high percentage of farms are not viable commercial units. These farmers have insufficient land and lack income to gain access to capital inputs. In some regions where government programmes are efficiently implemented, small farmers are not disadvantaged and are able to benefit to the same degree as farmers of larger holdings. Yet it is also evident that, through time, some larger holdings often expand at the expense of small farmers. In general terms government policy has been successful in that agricultural growth has averaged 3% a year in the past two decades and is estimated to average 3.6% a year in the 1990s. This outstrips population growth (2.4% per annum). However, even though productivity has increased largely through capital intensive techniques, the maximum output possible from arable land has yet to be achieved. Compared with average yields for major crops in other Mediterranean countries, Turkey’s remain low. The implications are that one of the principle reasons for this is the persistent difficulties encountered by the landless and small farmers with insufficient land. This leads to the conclusion that some form of land redistribution would be in order to create a more competitive market as well as higher levels of productivity and income. The implications of this for the Southeast Anatolia Project should be seen in the context of state policy. It appears that such projects will only address the problems of Turkish agriculture in general, and the plight of small farmers in particular, if accompanied by land reform. Land reform without the government’s institutional help would achieve little, but land reform and agricultural subsidy policies together would enable projects such as GAP to reach their full potential. The two should not be seen as alternatives but as complementary to each other.
LAND USE POLICY
October
1990
313
Behrooz Morvaridi
Many countries have adopted agrarian reform programmes which distinguish between the intensification of farming through technical change and land reform. Yet both come within agrarian reform and they should be seen as complementary to each other rather than as alternatives. This article addresses the implications of Turkish agrarian reform for the Southeast Anatolia Project (GAP). GAP is the fourth largest irrigation project in the world and its long-term objective is to reduce regional disparity by developing the Southeast. The agrarian structure of Southeast Anatolia and the government’s past and present policies towards agriculture may influence GAP’s potential success. The author is Associate Professor at the Eastern Mediterranean University and can be contacted at 12 Coleridge Court, 81 TEpuKoad, New Barnet, Her& EN5
‘B. Morvaridi, ‘Gender and labour: cash crops in Kars’, in P. Stirling, ed, Culrure and Economy: Changes in Turkish Villages, SOAS, London: UK, forthcoming. *K. Griffin, Alternative Strateaies for Economic Development, OECD Development Centre/Macmillan, London, UK, 1989. 3Food and Agriculture Organization, Forty Years After, FAO, Rome, Italy, 1988, p 35.
0264-8377/90/040303-11
Conventional land reform involves the expropriation and redistribution of land by legal means, such as tenancy legislation. Many countries adopted land reform policies during the 1950s and 1960s - Egypt 1952-70, Iran 1962-72, India 1950s Turkey 1945-50 and 1973 onwards although they differed widely in structure and implementation. Most of the policies were aimed at enlarging average farm size and hence income per capita in rural areas by redistributing land to agricultural workers with insufficient land. Land reform was perceived as a way of achieving production efficiency and/or equity in distribution of agricultural resources. However, the majority of land reform policies effectively failed to achieve their optimum and fulfil socioeconomic and political expectations. Furthermore, no land reform programme has adequately addressed the problem of women’s rights to landownership.’ United Nations publications indicate that women undertake nearly two-thirds of all working hours, receive only 10% of world income and own less than 1% of world property. Since the 1960s the green revolution - the intensification of agriculture through technological innovation - has been regarded as an alternative to land reform.* Technical change explores the use of capital-intensive inputs in farming, focusing on input-output substitution. Governments have been concerned to intensify land use and increase production given that all possible arable land is under cultivation. The global area of arable land has hardly been expanded in the last 30 years and any increase tends to be at the expense of the environment, such as in the case of Brazilian forests, or onto unsuitable soils. Two-thirds of increased production in the 1950s was the result of area extension, but only half in the 1960s and a quarter in the last two decades.’ The world’s population has almost doubled since 1960, but the area of arable land has increased by only 10%. Technical development, therefore, has played the major role in the expansion of food production to support a growing world population.
0 1990 Butterworth-Heinemann
Ltd
303
Table 1. Land distribution by household and size of holding.
Size (ha)
Number of holdings (thousands)
% total
Total area (ha x 10’)
% total area
l-4 5-Q
2175 730
61.1 20.6
45 556 46 392
20.3 21.3
11.6 6.7 0.7 0.1
54 245 52 067 17056 9 502
23.8 22.6 7.0 4.1
10-19 20-49 Source: State Instituteof Statistics.Census of Agriculture, SIS, Ankara,Turkey, 1960.
4M.Lipton,
New Seeds and Poor People,
Unwin Hyman, London, UK, 1989. ‘Griffin, op tit, Ref 2. 6O. Varlier, Structural Change, Technology and Land Distribution in Turkish Agriculture, State Planning Organization, Ankara, Turkey, 1978, p 307; World Bank, tndustrialization and Trade Policy, World Bank,
Washington, DC, USA, 19g2, p 293. ‘R. Aktan, ‘Problems of land reform in Turkey’, The Middle Eastern Journal, Vol 20, No 3, 1966, p 320.
304
50-99
100+
422 221 26 3
With the intensification of farming, crop production has tripled in the last 20 years. Yield per hectare has risen as a direct result of new technology. Large and small farmers alike are encouraged to operate with capital-intensive inputs, but small farmers very often lack access to such inputs. As a result, their productivity is low and their purchasing power weak, leaving many small farmers dependent 00 labour income for food consumption.4 Despite government assistance in the form of subsidies (on fertilizers, machinery, etc) larger farmers continue to have greater access to inputs, thus marginalizing smaller holdings. If subsidies do not always reach the smaller farmer, the implication is that not only has land reform policy failed, but the intensification of farming has also failed to improve the plight of small farmers in the developing world, To date the two policies have tended to be employed independently of each other, neither providing sufficient conditions for substantial and sustained growth. This implies that the ‘two approaches are best seen as complementary to one another, not as alternatives’.5 In the case of Turkey, with its population growth rate of around 2.5% per annum, the intensification of agriculture has been relatively successful in increasing production. Land reform, on the other hand, has been considered but not widely adopted, even though both land reform and the technical advance of farming remain within the government’s policy of agrarian reform. In contrast to other developing countries such as India, Pakistan and Iran, Turkish agriculture has never undergone a completed land reform programme. Although land reform and the appropriate government bills have been proposed in Turkey, implementation has not been fully realized. Table 1 shows that more than 80% of farmers in Turkey own less than 10 ha of land and therefore work small farms. It is difficult to estimate the number of landless farmers because landlessness varies between regions: between 20% and 30% of total households in the southern regions and between 5% and 10% in the northern.6 Since the foundation of the Turkish Republic (1923) three attempts have been made to redistribute land to small farmers. In the 1920s a new civil code was introduced to repeal Ottoman law. In terms of landownership, this signified the dismantling of the miri system, which conferred authority over 40% of all arable land upon the state. Private landownership was encouraged to take its place and state land was distributed to the landless and immigrants from the Balkans. This first attempt at land reform did not address the question of large-scale redistribution of land from large landowners to the poor or landless, or the question of women’s rights to property. Only in 1946 did the Ministrv , of Aericulture Dresent a bill to the state assemblv, calline for 1 the redistribution of state lands and land from large, private landlords (those owning over 50 ha) to those who had ‘insufficient’ land.’ It aroused strong opposition from landowners, who succeeded in modifyLAND USE POLICY
October
1990
Agrarian
reform
and land use policy in Turkq,
ing the bill which was sdbsecmently passed as the Land Reform Law. It
is estimated that 1.8 million ha of state land were parcelled out amongst 360 000 families between 1947 and 1962. Hardly any private land was redistributed. Increasing landlessness became apparent in the 1970 Survey of Agriculture. Under the rationale that land was unsuitably distributed for sufficient economic production, the government decided to redistribute 3.2 million ha to 540 000 households, thereby providing land for landless farmers or those with extremely small holdings with the intention of raising per capita incomes.x In fact only 230 000 ha were distributed to 1218 landless and smallholding families over the three year period up to 1978 (18.9 ha per family).” To summarize, the Turkish government has failed to implement significant land reform. It might be argued that, in the 199Os, redistribution is no longer the key issue for the government and that land consolidation should take preference in planning programmes. This may be so in some regions of Turkey, but it cannot be denied that there remains a need for land reform in regions such as Southeast Anatolia where, despite poor social conditions, market forces have already shaped the pattern of agriculture.
State policy and agricultural commercialization Two phases agriculture: 0 0
‘Agrarian Reform Secretariat, SPO, Ankara, Turkey, 1975. “Turkey into the 1990s’. Economic Intelligence Unit, Economist Publication Ltd. London, 1989. loState Institute Statistics, Agricultural Structural Production, SIS, Ankara, Turkey, 1988, p 122. “State Institute Statistics, Summary of Agricultural Statistics, SIS, Ankara, Turkey, 195040. “8. Morvaridi, ‘Strategies of households in the production of cash/food crops’, in T. Marsden and J. Little, eds, The food Chain and Rural Responses, Gower, Aldershot, UK, 1990.
can be seen in Turkey’s
LAND USE POLICY
October
1990
as regards
1950-60: mechanical innovation (eg introduction of tractors) and the expansion of arable land; 1960- : biological innovation and the intensification of land use.
Turkish agriculture underwent a major transformation in the 1950s as a result of state intervention and technical change supported by US aid. The number of tractors in use increased from 1658 in 1948 to 40 282 in 1955, reaching 637 449 in 1987.“’ The government provided credit on easy terms to enable small farmers to buy tractors and other agricultural inputs. In addition to mechanical innovation, the area under crop cultivation increased by 50% between 1948 and 1950 (Table 2) and by 61.5% between 1948 and 1960. This expansion was at the expense of marginal and pastural land. Agricultural productivity increased with the expansion of the area under crop cultivation. A fourfold growth in agricultural production was reported by the State Institute of Statistics, indicating a major change in Turkish agriculture.” However, yield per hectare remained fairly constant throughout the 195Os.‘* Since by the 1960s the physical expansion of arable land reached its limit, a rise in agricultural production was no longer possible unless yield per hectare could be Table 2. Land use in Turkey, 1946-87
Source: State Institute of Statistics, Summary or Agricolluraal Statistics, SE, Ankara, Turkey, 1965, 1967, 1984; State Institute Statistics, Agricultural Structure and Production, SE, Ankara, Turkey, 1988.
land use policy
Crop area Fallow land Pasture and meadow Vegetables Fruit gardens Olives Forest
(ha x 1O3).
1948
1955
1980
1970
1980
1967
9477 4 423 38 330
14 205 6 793 31 009
15 306 7 959 28 658
476 10 418
16372 8186 11743 616 1 352 013 20 199
18 781 5 574
735 540 10584
15 591 6 703 445 1019 731 18 273
277 10418
609 1 517 656 20199
305
increased. Further agricultural production was vital to meet an ever growing demand: the government had calculated that the population was likely to increase by 2.9% per annum, that per capita consumption would increase by 2.4% and that there would be considerable growth in domestic industries.” Due to the inelastic supply of land, evident since the 196Os, priority has been given to increasing production through intensive production methods. With the establishment of the State Planning Organization (SPO) in 1961, priority in agricultural development policies was given to diversification and intensification.14 Agriculture was organized to support the government’s economic policy of industrial expansion and thus crops included in the import substitution policy, such as sugar beet and cotton, saw the greatest increase in area of cultivation and output. Between 1960 and 1987 the area under wheat cultivation increased by 25%, whereas wheat production increased by 123.6%. and the area under sugar beet rose by almost 80% with production rising by 205.8%. Production of fruits and vegetables more than doubled in the same period. A major concern since 1960 has been to draw production away from the level of small subsistence households towards market-oriented production.” Thus more emphasis has been given to the cultivation of commercial crops such as vegetables, cotton and sugar beet. To achieve this, the SPO programme encourages rural households to use yieldincreasing inputs such as improved irrigation systems, high-yielding varieties (HYVs) of seeds, fertilizers and pesticides, more tractors and other farm machinery (see Table 3). In 1965 only 11% of total rural households applied chemical fertilizers to their crops, but by 1980 68% were using fertilizers. ” In real terms, 295 300 tons of fertilizers were applied in 1962 and 8977.3 million tons in 1987. Today around 60% of arable lands are fertilized.17 ‘%tate Planning Organization, First Five Year Plan, SPO, Ankara, Turkey, 1963, p
Subsidies and support prices
110.
The increased use of fertilizers was a direct result of the government’s policy of subsidizing prices, distributing the commercial product belowcost directly to farmers and cooperatives, and providing credit at subsidized rates to enable small farmers to purchase them. As a result fertilizer prices were kept low and declined in real terms. By 1979 subsidies on fertilizers amounted to 60-80% of production cost.IX Another major technological development has been an increase in privately owned tractors, with the number of tractors growing rapidly at around 12% a year in the past two decades.” With government subsidies tractors were sold to farmers for less than production cost.” As a result of the increasing use of capital inputs in agriculture the incremental capital-output ratio rose from 1.9 in 1966 to 4.0 in 1978.”
j41bid, pp 20 and 31. “‘The Fourth Five Year Development Plan’, SPO, Ankara, Turkey, 1977, p 53. ‘%tate Institute of Statistics, Census of Agricu/fure, SIS, Ankara, Turkey, 1965 and 1980. ‘%IS, op cif, Fief 10, p 98. ‘8World Bank, op tit, Ref 6, p 302.
‘world
Bank, Agricultural Mechanizafion,
World Bank, Washington, DC, USA, 1987, p 17. 2oOECD, Regional Problems and Policies in Turkey, OECD, Paris, France, 1988, p ilp&orM Bank, op tit, Ref 6.
Table 3. Modern agricultural inpuls, 1950-87. Area under cultivation YeW 1950 1962 1965 Source: State Institute of Statistics. AgricuMural 1970 Structure and Production, SIS. Ankara, Turkey, 1975 1988; SIS, Economic Repoti. SIS. Ankara, Tur1980 key, 1988: SIS. Summary of Agricultural Srafis- 1987 tics, SIS,Ankara, Turkey, 1968.
306
(ha x 103)
Tr8CtOrS
14542 23215 23556 24295 24418 24560 24355
16585 43747 54666 105865 243066 436369 637449
WtitS
Fertilizers (tons x 103) 295.3 802.8 2217.3 3691.0 5 967.5 8 977.3
LAND USE POLICY October 1990
Agrarian
**B. Morvaridi, ‘Cash crop production and the process of transformation’, Develop mend and Chancre. Vol 21, No 4, 1990. pp 693-722. 23Turkey’s Ministry of State divides the country’s agricultural regions into: Central North, Aegean, Marmara, Mediterranean, Northeast, Southeast, Black Sea, Central East, Central South.
LAND USE POLICY October 1990
and land use policy
in Turkey
Unprecedented commercialization of agriculture entails costly inputs. In view of the landownership pattern of small farmers in Turkey the majority of farmers are not in a position to buy modern, yield-increasing inputs and new technology. The income of cultivators who have less than 10 ha of land, ie 82% of rural households in Turkey, is insufficient to buy capital inputs and consumer goods unless supplemented by government subsidies. This implies that the widespread consumption of manufacturing goods is only possible through government intervention. State agencies not only intervene in agriculture by distributing inputs and providing credit, but they are also directly involved in marketing crops. Crops are purchased from the farmers by state agencies at subsidized prices to be sold to consumers at support prices. There are a number of government agencies, each of which is responsible for regulating the marketing and the pricing of a particular crop. The market price of agricultural goods is fixed through a price support policy in order to guarantee floor prices and thereby encourage the production of agricultural commodities. A substantial change in the government’s attitude to subsidies became apparent in the 1980s partly in reaction to a rising national debt problem and the adoption of structural adjustment policies. To control inflation and reduce the balance of payments deficit a stabilization programme was introduced. A tight monetary policy was put into operation, resulting in a reduction in public-sector expenditure which included farmers’ subsidies. 22 Plans to integrate farmers fully into the market mechanism and ease their dependence on the state arose out of the government’s new export-oriented policy. An appropriate question to ask at this point is whether the application of new technologies and the above policies have improved yield per hectare? The introduction of HYVs appears to have brought about some increase in yield for a number of major crops in the past three decades. Between 1960 and 1980 yield per hectare increased by 85% for wheat, by 60% for sugar beet, and by 55% for cotton. Increased production of cotton is due to a number of factors, not just inputs. It is produced in areas of Turkey which are considered to have the richest infrastructure. The Aegean and the Mediterranean regions, for example, both have modern irrigation systems, factories and roads as well as the highest proportion of tractors.*” The production of other crops has improved due to the high application of fertilizers by farmers, facilitated both by the increased domestic production of manufactured fertilizers and government subsidies assisting farmers to purchase them. Overall yield per hectare has increased, but there is considerable variation on a regional level (Table 4). Table 4. Agricultural
%eans, peas, lentils, etc; bOnions, potatoes. Source: World Bank, 1983.
reform
yields by region, 1978-60.
Region
Cemels (kg/-pit@
Central East Northeast
I 424 1090
Southeast
I 250
North Central South Central Mediterranean Marmara Aegean Black Sea Turkey
Pulses*
Tuber crop@
wwm
I 124
I2 933 13 623 I2 657
30663 20 495 13 141
1064 1 826 2 329 2683 2263 1650
1069 1143 1 207 1060 1 259 I 171
14 983 I7405 14205 16961 18022 11 154
29906 31 907 26 450 36366 32 913 27 936
I 829
1 126
I5 176
29636
Table 4 shows lower yields in the eastern regions compared to others, which would imply that per capita income is lower in these areas. In recent years the state has intervened to reduce differences between regions. In the Southeast this has taken the form of heavy investment in infrastructure and irrigation projects. The Southeast Anatolia Project (GAP) has been central to the government’s development plan.
Southeast Anatolia
*@Regional Problems and Policies in Turkev’. OECD. Paris. 1988. 255t&e Planning drganization, Southeast Anatolian Project (GAP), SPO, Ankara, Turkey, 1989. *qaylan Dericioglu, ‘Southeastern Anatolian Project (GAP)‘, lsfanbul Chamber of Commerce, No 85, 1989. *“Agricultural Structure and Production’, State Institute of Statistics, Ankara, Turkey, 1988. **C. Keyder, ‘The cycle of sharecropping and consolidation of small peasant ownership in Turkey’, Journal of Peasant Studies, Vol X, 1983, pp 34-49.
Southeast Anatolia, classified as ‘less developed’, is the poorest region in Turkey.24 Table 5 shows comparative indicators between Turkey and the Southeast; 8.5% of the Turkish populatiQn (4 303 567 people) live in the region, 49.9% of whom live in urban areas. The average population density is 58/km2, below the national average of 65/km2. The agricultural sector employs 70% of the labour force. Of the nine provinces of the Southeast, six will be directly affected by the GAP Gaziantep, Diyarbakir, Sanliurfa, Mardin, Adiyaman and Siirt, bordering Iraq and Syria and covering 73 863km’. All six provinces of the region are considered to be areas of out migration, yet the average annual population growth in the past two decades has remained around 2.9%, which is higher than the national average of 2.4%.2” The dependency ratio of the population is high: 47% of the population are economically active, 50% are under 15 years of age and 3% are over 64. The ethnicity of the people is Kurdish and some continue to live a traditional nomadic life. The region has a dry, continental climate, with average annual temperatures in the range of 14.5-18.1”C and maximums of 21.232.O”C. Average annual precipitation ranges from 473.1 to 835.4 mm. Between June and September there is no rain. Dry farming currently dominates in the region, and wheat is the major crop.‘h Crop cultivation covers 42% of land, 85% of which is dry farming land, 4% is under irrigation, and the remainder is devoted to horticulture. Ninety-one percent of farmers are engaged in mixed farming, cultivating crops and raising livestock, with the latter the main source of income. Southeast Anatolia is the third largest agricultural region in Turkey, accounting for 13.3% of the total cultivated land. However, only 3.9% of Turkey’s tractors are found in the Southeast which compares unfavourably with other regions such as the Aegean, which accounts for only 9.8% of the national area under cultivation but 19.9% of all tractors.27 It is estimated that around only 5% of Turkey’s 36 000 villages are engaged in large-scale capitalist farming and a high proportion (32%) are found in the Southeast. 2x This is a distinguishing feature of the region in a country characterized by small family-farm units. There are a Table 5. Comparison Index
Note: Numbers in parentheses have negative values. Soufce: State Institute of Statistics, Statistical Year Book ol Turkey. SIS, Ankara, Turkey, 1967.
308
selected indices,
1965.
Turkey
GAP region
GAP as 56 oi Turkey
779 50 664 2.4 65 53
73 4 303 2.9 56 49.9
17.7 25.2 1 622
39.6 11.7 662
of the GAP region and Turkey by
Land area (km’) Total population (x 103) Population growth, 1965-65 (%) Population density (km*) Urban population (% total) Economic structure (% in GDPIGRP) Agriculture Manufacturing Per capita GDPIGRP
9.5 6.5
(9.0) (1.9) (47)
LAND USE POLICY October 1990
Agrarian
reform
and Iund use policy in Turkey
number of villages in which only one or relatively few families possess all cultivated land, with the landownership of some families extending beyond the boundaries of one village alone. There are 231 families and 96 extended families who own whole villages, known as ‘landlord villages’. This pattern of landownership has been consistent over time. Any transformation of the relations of production has largely been stimulated by technical change and the commercialization of farming. Land reform in the area has been of little significance. The ideal size for a family holding would be between 7 and 25 ha, but to achieve such a redistribution of land has not even been considered. The fact that 38% of households are landless (including nomads) testifies to the absence of land redistribution in the region. Agricultural work remains the main source of income for the landless, but they tend to work the land as sharecroppers for absentee landlords or wage labourers for large holdings. They have less access to machinery, fertilizers, circulating capital and marketing. Sharecropping for absentee landlords is equated with low productivity in this region. This inefficiency reflects a lack of incentive. Substantial sharecropping relates to a high degree of unequal land distribution and results in an increasing number of people with no direct title to land at all. Sharecropping also reflects the tendency for large holdings to be fragmented into workable plots of land. The management of large holdings is problematic and in this region large areas of land are often left fallow each year. This creates a major obstacle for agricultural development. Low productivity is the net result of the area’s agrarian structure. Although 70% of the labour force are accounted for by the agricultural sector, it makes a relatively low contribution (44%) to the revenue of the region compared with the service sector (37%) and industry (19%). (Petroleum extraction and refining is the region’s main industry.) The socioeconomic structure of this region can be summarized as follows. A traditional social structure persists along with dispersed settlement patterns and uneven landownership, with a high proportion of landless farmers. Major socioeconomic variables - education and training, health and medical services - are at a low level. The underdeveloped nature of Southeast Anatolia is the result of noncomplementary state policies in the region, the absence of land reform and institutionalized reform.
GAP
?State Planning Organization,Southeastern Anatolia Project Master Plan Study, Final Master Plan Report, Vol 1, Executive Summary, 1989.
LAND USE POLICY
October
1990
The State Planning Organization established the Department of LessDeveloped Regions in order to give priority to the Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia regions. The Southeast Anatolia Project (GAP), which comes under the auspices of the SPO, is seen as an integrated regional development programme related to national development strategies.29 Planning practice has by tradition been highly centralized in Turkey, but the planning of GAP is decentralized to the regional level. The main objective of the GAP project is to reduce regional inequality, ensuring economic growth and social stability in the region. It aims to mobilize regional resources, increase productivity and income per capita and create employment opportunities. The extent to which this can meet with success depends on complementary policies of land reform and the intensification of agriculture. GAP is the fourth largest irrigation scheme in the world (Figure 1). It
309
schemes in the Southeastern
SYHIA
-
Pumped Scheme
Staye
Summary,
Project.
Scheme
__,._..r..,.,.
Bank
Anatolia
1st
Rqht
Anatolia Project Master Plan Study, Final Master Plan Report, Vol 1, Executive
1. Location of water resource development
Source: Southeastern
Figure
Scheme
Dlcle
1989.
I
Dlcle
Bank
txlstlrlg schemes
Right
,rr,g,Jt,cr,
Scheme Nusaybin-Clzre-ldtl
Scheme
Agrarian
reform
und Iund use policy in Turkq,
consists of 13 projects for irrigation, 21 dams and 17 hydroelectric energy plants built on the Euphrates and Tigris river basin.3” The Ataturk dam is the largest project of GAP, consisting of two diversion tunnels of 26 km each. It is expected that. on completion, GAP will enable 1.7 million ha to be irrigated, approximately 50% of the total irrigated area in Turkey (see Table 6). Turkey’s current electricity production will be doubled, with a capacity equal to seven large nuclear power plants (1200 megawatts).” The total investment cost of the entire project is estimated to be $1.9 billion (which may reach US$20 given current exchange rates). The project is in three phases. Phase 1 (up to 1994) involves preparation, completion of on-going projects, improvements in urban water supply, and improvements in infrastructure and communication between the major cities (Figure 2). Phase 2 (19952004) includes completion of all hydropower and irrigation schemes, intensification of farming and the expansion of agroindustries. The final phase (2005 onwards) aims to ensure the stable and sustained growth of all sectors of the economy.
Implications
The GAP project is an example of state-supported technical change. The government’s policy is to encourage large-scale intensive farming in order to develop agroindustries, such as food processing, in the region. The intensification of commodity relations in agriculture continues to be an integrated part of the overall economic strategy. The cultivation of commercial crops such as cotton, soya beans, oil seeds, sunflowers, feed grains, fruit and vegetables has been encouraged in the Southeast, and
3olbid.
3’OECD,
of agrarian reform for GAP
op tit, Ref 20, p 50.
Corridor
ccIRRIDOR
Figure 2. Development
corridors
and phasing in the Southeast
A
Anatolia
0X
development
Population
ordering
in
phases
of
corridor
Project.
Source: see Figure 1.
LAND USE POLICY
October
1990
311
Agrurh
reform urrd Iutrd use policy
itr Turkey Table 6. Importance
Sources: State Planning Organization, SPO. Ankara, Turkey; OECD, Regional Problems and Policies in Turkey, OECD. Paris, 1966.
of the Southeast
Irrigated land (ha x 106) Capacity electricity (MgW x 106) Production (G Kwh)
Anatolia Project.
Turkey (1986)
GAP when completed
Ratio ot GAP to Turkey on completion
3.7 10.1 39.7
1.7 7.6 22.0
46% 75% 55%
the government has even gone so far as to offer incentives to foreign companies to invest in agriculture-oriented industries in the region. The development of agroindustry in the region may be successful but, given its prevailing socioeconomic structure, an even greater degree of economic differentiation may arise unless complementary policies which address the issues of both land reform and technical change are implemented. The development of large-scale agroindustry may transform production relations at the village and household level, by attracting the large number of landless sharecroppers to work as wage labourers in industry. However, considering the slow pace of investment in the region, it is unlikely that industries will develop fast enough to absorb the labour force released from agriculture or the landless. This implies that the state should consider the position of small farmers and the landless now, in the early stages of the project’s development. The large-scale infrastructural and irrigation projects of GAP will have a significant impact on the people and socioeconomy of the Southeast. But this relationship is not one-way. It has been implied that the current agrarian structure may place constraints on the success of the GAP project. Neither technical change nor land reform have taken into account the position of women in agriculture, even though the process of commoditization is reliant on a sexually differentiated labour process. Women’s participation in the agricultural production process is extensive when farming units are based on the family household. With the development of agroindustry, one might believe that women would have the opportunity to break from the mould of unpaid family labour to become wage labourers. This is unlikely in the Southeast, however, since women are restricted to the boundaries of their villages by patriarchal traditions. What may prove to be of significance, however, is the change in cultural restrictions placed on women who are rarely permitted to be household heads or to exercise their property rights, once men enter the industrial labour market and leave women to play a more active role in agricultural production.
Conclusion Turkish agriculture has reached the stage where farmers are dependent to a considerable degree on state intervention in the form of price support policies and subsidies. It appears that unless the government continues to pursue an interventionist policy the income of the majority of farmers will have little chance of stabilizing at a reasonable level. Even with the current measures offered by the government to develop and assist intensification, many small farmers face financial crises. Income per capita remains low in the agricultural sector and compares unfavourably with that of industry. Why do government policies fall short of their long-term objectives? Subsidies and price support may indeed assist farmers with largeholdings, since they can afford to take advantage of government credit and 312
LAND USE POLICY
October
1990
Agrarian
reform
and land use policy ill Turkey
subsidies on capital inputs. However, given the pattern of small-sized holdings and the fragmented distribution of land in many areas of Turkey, a high percentage of farms are not viable commercial units. These farmers have insufficient land and lack income to gain access to capital inputs. In some regions where government programmes are efficiently implemented, small farmers are not disadvantaged and are able to benefit to the same degree as farmers of larger holdings. Yet it is also evident that, through time, some larger holdings often expand at the expense of small farmers. In general terms government policy has been successful in that agricultural growth has averaged 3% a year in the past two decades and is estimated to average 3.6% a year in the 1990s. This outstrips population growth (2.4% per annum). However, even though productivity has increased largely through capital intensive techniques, the maximum output possible from arable land has yet to be achieved. Compared with average yields for major crops in other Mediterranean countries, Turkey’s remain low. The implications are that one of the principle reasons for this is the persistent difficulties encountered by the landless and small farmers with insufficient land. This leads to the conclusion that some form of land redistribution would be in order to create a more competitive market as well as higher levels of productivity and income. The implications of this for the Southeast Anatolia Project should be seen in the context of state policy. It appears that such projects will only address the problems of Turkish agriculture in general, and the plight of small farmers in particular, if accompanied by land reform. Land reform without the government’s institutional help would achieve little, but land reform and agricultural subsidy policies together would enable projects such as GAP to reach their full potential. The two should not be seen as alternatives but as complementary to each other.
LAND USE POLICY
October
1990
313