Organic Agriculture Cluster in Southeast Anatolia Region of Turkey: A collaborative initiative to foster local economic development

Summary

GAP is an acronym in Turkish for “Southeastern Anatolian Project”. The GAP region today is poised to undergo a transformation from a region mired with low productivity, unemployment, migration, social problems and relative underdevelopment to a region based on new competitive advantages. The main strategies for the regional transformation include sustainable production: This involves a realignment of key productive sectors (e.g. agriculture, tourism and textiles) around a common strategy featuring organic products, produced by utilizing renewable energy resources, under fair labour market conditions, and in a entrepreneurship-supporting environment.. Through the combination of such techniques, the region is intented to carve out a leading position among emerging regions worldwide. At the moment around 400.000 ha land area is being irrigated and the figure is expected to reach to 1 million ha by the end of year 2015. This indicates that irrigated farming will be available in vast areas in a very short period of time. GAP Organic Agriculture Cluster Project is being implemented by the Southeast Anatolia Project Regional Development Administration (GAP RDA) of Ministry of Development with the technical assistance of United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The Project, which was initiated in 2009 and expected to be completed in 2015, has an overall budget of 6.5 million TL.