Answers of Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock of the Republic of Turkey to the questions raised by CFS-HLPE:
1. With the effect of agroecological and sustainable innovative approaches, determination of the potential of natural resources will be provided and the potential, the problems and the susceptibility of the agricultural lands will be examined. Therefore, more accurate and reasonable decisions will be made. Also, with the help of the agroecological approaches, the usage of fossil fuel and chemical fertilizer etc. will be decreased and help to minimize the ecological footprint. The integration of innovative approaches to the traditional agricultural techniques must be provided. Also, the farmers must be informed about the ecological principles and programs by suitable techniques. Then, the social equity and awareness raising of the new generation would be provided.
2. The existence, richness and sustainable usage of food are closely relevant with climate change. The approach of agroecology provide long time climate assessment. Also, the determination of the climate properties of agricultural products can help for making a decision about food security. Moreover, the traditional knowledge must not be regarded. Farmers, who have to produce in rough land conditions, promote physical and biological methods to enhance these conditions. These methods must be combined with new technological methods. The technological methods must be spontaneously carried out together with the traditional knowledge. The constitution of self-sufficient system with the agricultural technologies towards the traditional knowledge provide the sustainable natural resources. After all, the when the food security increases the human health and prosperity develop.
3. For applying and increasing the new technologies, climate and land evaluation works on especially the subjects about agroecological approaches have to be continued. The strategical evaluations and planning have to provide alternative producing scenarios when some extraordinary conditions such as climate differences and fast population growth exist. The risks, advantages and effects of the new technologies to traditional knowledge must be evaluated.
4. To observe the positive or negative effects of agricultural technologies about food security and nutrition, local, regional and territorial natural resources (eg. vegetation, fauna, soil, water, climate, geology, topography etc.) must be analyzed. With the light of the results of these analyzes, determination of the usage properties of lands, evaluation of the same potentials between the lands and the problems must be exposed. Also, the abiotic parameters for the crops especially barley, wheat, corn etc. must be determined. The indicators can change depending on diversity, coherence, cultural change and fragmentation of land. All these situations and the analyzes can be revealed by using Geographic Information Systems. Updating the data in certain periods provides the following and strategic evaluation works.
Burak Güresinli