13.1 Introduction
In recent years, Turkey used technology in agriculture and progressed a lot to
increase productivity. Using geographical information systems (GIS), statistics,
and IT technology helped Turkey to reach the same level as the developed countries
in terms of the number of products obtained per livestock and per area.
Turkey has an agricultural area of 23,7 million ha, 14,6 million ha of pasture, 22,3
million ha of forest, 1 million ha of water, and 17,35 million ha of other areas,
including residential zones (TURKSTAT 2016). Therefore, almost half of the
country is dedicated to agricultural and pasture areas that are subject to pure
agricultural policy.
In Turkey, until 2012, agricultural subsidies were paid by the District Subsidy
Commission, according to data from the National Farmer Registry System. There
were no additional controls if a mistake was made about the declared cultivated area
or amount of outlay.
In 2012, the initiation of integrating spatial information with agricultural practice
was introduced by the Ministry of Food Agriculture and Livestock (MoFAL). In this
study, 330 SPOT 5 satellite images have been orthorectified using 16,500 ground
control points, and projection transformations have been carried out with projection
systems suitable for Turkey. Agricultural parcels have been delineated through the
SPOT images, and 32.5 million parcels have been generated, with an electronic ID
number for every parcel. With this system, the Ministry of Food Agriculture and
Livestock reaches land use distribution and technical information such as drought,
yield, plant water consumption, and ecological conformance in these areas by
province, district, and parcel level.
Consequently, by January 2013, a new approach to the distribution of subsidy
payments according to yield calculation per parcel was introduced. This new
approach brought about the estimation of realistic yield values for each agricultural
parcel based on spatial features. It provided fair payments according to parcel yield
values, prevention of payments to nonagricultural areas or residents within the
agricultural parcels, improvement of quality of agricultural statistics based on spatial
data, prevention of payments with counterfeit and duplicate deeds in the Farmer
Registry System, and prevention of unreal harvest declarations. Estimation of
realistic agricultural statistics by determining unrecorded parcels in the Farmer
Registry System has been achieved. It also assisted proper agricultural planning
using the new parcel-based subsidy system.
With the new parcel-based support payment system, since 2012, farmers have
been paid according to their land characteristics. Agricultural statistics are improving
day to day. Unreal harvest declarations and payments for nonagricultural areas are
prohibited. All objections are handled with the help of spatial data. Since the
beginning of our study, 1.5 million counterfeit or duplicate deeds have been identified, which has reduced the financial burden on the subsidy budget. It is clear that
the effective use of agricultural lands is significant in terms of agricultural potential
and the population employed in farming in Turkey. With modern agricultural
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H. Erden and M. Aslan
In recent years, Turkey used technology in agriculture and progressed a lot to
increase productivity. Using geographical information systems (GIS), statistics,
and IT technology helped Turkey to reach the same level as the developed countries
in terms of the number of products obtained per livestock and per area.
Turkey has an agricultural area of 23,7 million ha, 14,6 million ha of pasture, 22,3
million ha of forest, 1 million ha of water, and 17,35 million ha of other areas,
including residential zones (TURKSTAT 2016). Therefore, almost half of the
country is dedicated to agricultural and pasture areas that are subject to pure
agricultural policy.
In Turkey, until 2012, agricultural subsidies were paid by the District Subsidy
Commission, according to data from the National Farmer Registry System. There
were no additional controls if a mistake was made about the declared cultivated area
or amount of outlay.
In 2012, the initiation of integrating spatial information with agricultural practice
was introduced by the Ministry of Food Agriculture and Livestock (MoFAL). In this
study, 330 SPOT 5 satellite images have been orthorectified using 16,500 ground
control points, and projection transformations have been carried out with projection
systems suitable for Turkey. Agricultural parcels have been delineated through the
SPOT images, and 32.5 million parcels have been generated, with an electronic ID
number for every parcel. With this system, the Ministry of Food Agriculture and
Livestock reaches land use distribution and technical information such as drought,
yield, plant water consumption, and ecological conformance in these areas by
province, district, and parcel level.
Consequently, by January 2013, a new approach to the distribution of subsidy
payments according to yield calculation per parcel was introduced. This new
approach brought about the estimation of realistic yield values for each agricultural
parcel based on spatial features. It provided fair payments according to parcel yield
values, prevention of payments to nonagricultural areas or residents within the
agricultural parcels, improvement of quality of agricultural statistics based on spatial
data, prevention of payments with counterfeit and duplicate deeds in the Farmer
Registry System, and prevention of unreal harvest declarations. Estimation of
realistic agricultural statistics by determining unrecorded parcels in the Farmer
Registry System has been achieved. It also assisted proper agricultural planning
using the new parcel-based subsidy system.
With the new parcel-based support payment system, since 2012, farmers have
been paid according to their land characteristics. Agricultural statistics are improving
day to day. Unreal harvest declarations and payments for nonagricultural areas are
prohibited. All objections are handled with the help of spatial data. Since the
beginning of our study, 1.5 million counterfeit or duplicate deeds have been identified, which has reduced the financial burden on the subsidy budget. It is clear that
the effective use of agricultural lands is significant in terms of agricultural potential
and the population employed in farming in Turkey. With modern agricultural
234
H. Erden and M. Aslan