Erdoğan: Foreign Dependency in Agricultural Products a Matter of National Security

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President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has delivered a speech at the 3rd Turkey Agriculture and Forestry Forum at Beştepe Culture and Convention Center in the capital Ankara.

Underscoring that developed countries exert extraordinary efforts to ensure their food security and for its future, Erdoğan said, "Ensuring food safety of our people has become a matter of national security for Turkey as it has for every other country.

He added that they opened the third largest seed gene bank in the world to ensure Turkey's food security and promised to protect the country's agriculture against "global firms that work just for profit."

"Foreign dependency in basic agricultural products is just as dangerous as foreign dependency in defense industry. It is a risk that can by no means be taken for a country like us which is located at the intersection of continents and struggles of interest.

"We build our agriculture policies upon these very facts. We have never and will never allow any step that would pose a security risk to our country."

The President further said that Turkey's seed imports increased by 11 times to 102 tons a year. (RT/VK)