WASHINGTON, March 30, 2022 – The World Bank today approved a $341.27 million loan to Turkey to support a more sustainable and competitive agricultural sector and promote the use of climate‐smart technologies and practices in several provinces in the country.
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.
The project will make an important contribution to addressing gender gaps by encouraging the participation of women in trainings and agricultural advisory support services; improving access to funding opportunities; and generating data for facilitating gender-related analysis and policymaking. 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.
“The World Bank is pleased to be a partner of Turkey as the country identifies and implements strategies for enhancing the productivity, resource efficiency and climate resilience of agricultural production. We hope this partnership will contribute to putting the agriculture sector on a more competitive and sustainable growth path and help Turkey achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2053,” said Auguste Kouame, World Bank Country Director for Turkey.
Spurring Turkey’s agri-food sustainable transformation could preserve and enhance trade opportunities, while enhancing the sector’s competitiveness, especially with the country’s biggest agri‐food trade partner, the European Union, which is promoting climate action through the EU Green Deal.
“Bringing digital technological solutions to the agriculture sector and generating relevant information on crop production, soils and land to support its sustainable management can enhance productivity and contribute to reducing the negative impacts of climate change on ecosystems and rural incomes and employment. This project will support the agriculture sector’s transition to a more sustainable, competitive and climate-smart orientation,” said Luz Diaz Rios, World Bank Task Team Leader for the Project.
TUCSAP’s main components include:
- Enhancing soil/land sustainable planning and management by strengthening national capacity around determining and monitoring soil health, and the protection of agricultural land and its sustainable use, which are intrinsic to the climate change agenda.
- Improving animal health by building capacity for early detection and effective animal disease surveillance, diagnostics and control and official regulation of veterinary medicines/vaccines.
- Boosting adoption of climate-smart technology, including use of renewable energies and energy-efficient technologies; supporting the adoption of digital technologies that increase the effectiveness of inputs in reducing production costs and GHG emissions; and supporting research, development and innovation efforts around climate-smart solutions.
The TUCSAP project will complement efforts by the World Bank to support resilience in Turkey’s agri-food sector and create jobs. These efforts include water-related investments under the ongoing Turkey
Irrigation Modernization Project: and agriculture-related investments to strengthen the resilience and livelihoods of vulnerable communities under the Turkey Resilient Landscape Integration Project (TULIP).
