Road map and date announced: Uncultivated agricultural lands will be rented

Within the scope of agricultural land management, the Ministry carries out land consolidation, protection of large agricultural plains, land use planning and management, bringing uncultivated agricultural lands into production, land acquisition, valuation and distribution, protection of the agricultural environment and natural resources.

Between 1961, when land consolidation studies began in Turkey, and 2002, registration of land consolidation works on 4.5 million decares was completed. The area whose consolidation was completed between 2003 and the end of this year is expected to increase to 72.7 million decares.

440 large plains covering 9.3 million hectares are protected as protected areas in the country. This year, the work on 24 more large plains has been completed and the approval phase has been reached. Work continues to increase the number of plains to 500 in total.

Land use planning and management

Based on the water potential and soil database, and taking into consideration the land characteristics, it is planned that the use plans, plan clarification reports and plan provisions will be brought to the approval stage by the end of the year.

For the land use planning studies planned to be carried out throughout the country, studies have started for soil classification in 1.9 million hectares in Edirne, Tekirdağ, Kırklareli and Yalova, and detailed soil classification in a total of 932 thousand hectares in these areas.

The 1/5000 scale land use planning studies initiated by the Ministry throughout the country in 2022 are aimed to be completed within 7 years.

Bringing uncultivated agricultural lands into production

With the amendment made to the Soil Conservation and Land Use Law, agricultural lands that have not been cultivated for two consecutive years due to reasons such as share ownership, ownership disputes and migration will be rented by the Ministry for agricultural production purposes, in order to bring them into the economy and on condition that the rental fees are paid to the owners. It is planned to identify uncultivated agricultural lands in the production years of 2024 and 2025 and to make the first lease in the last quarter of 2025.

Within the scope of efforts to land landless farmers with treasury lands so that they can establish agricultural family enterprises with sufficient income, 1 million 69 thousand decares of treasury land was distributed to 16 thousand 670 farmer families until 2023. Since 2020, a total of 341.3 million lira has been collected within the scope of land and land costs distributed throughout Turkey and rental income.

Nitrate Action Plan will be implemented

Within the scope of studies aimed at protecting water resources against pollution caused by agricultural activities, it is aimed to detect agricultural pollution and identify nitrate-sensitive areas. Agricultural nitrate pollution monitoring studies are carried out in waters at 4 thousand 852 stations across Turkey. Approximately 15 thousand samples are taken annually and a total of 85 thousand analyzes are performed on different parameters. In addition, the Nitrate Action Plan was prepared to be implemented starting from next year.

The Nitrate Action Plan includes measures to protect soil and water resources in terms of land, fertilization, animal manure and irrigation management.