TITLE:
An Assessment of the Water, Irrigation, and Food Security by a Fishbone Analysis in Turkey
AUTHORS:
A. Ahmet Yücer, Feyza Nur Ayhan
KEYWORDS:
Precipitation, Climate Change, Water, Irrigation, Food Security
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Access Library Journal,
Vol.7 No.11,
November
27,
2020
ABSTRACT: The use of water resources is ineffective although Turkey has insufficient freshwater resources. Dry farming is practiced in a large part of agricultural land. This land due to insufficient precipitation throughout the country is left to fallow once in two years. Agricultural drought is becoming a severe challenge for agriculture and food security, and it may also impact the wealth of farmers by agriculture income. So, it causes widespread concern among the rural population. There is a close relationship between food security and agricultural irrigation. Ensuring food security against population increase is the main responsibility of the government via irrigation policies. Basically, these policies are divided into two as expanding irrigated areas and improving efficiency in irrigation by new irrigation investments. These are water transfer from reservoirs to dry agricultural areas and improve pressurized irrigation investment. Significant efforts have been made by governments since the 1960s to reduce the risk of drought in agricultural production and to increase agricultural yields. Increasing agricultural income through irrigation and satisfying small family businesses are among the political goals of governments. However, according to the findings of this study, as the development priorities of governments changed after 2003, the share of irrigation investments in the total budget gradually decreased. Although great targets have been set for 2023, it seems difficult to reach these targets since sufficient resources are not allocated to irrigation investments. In this study, the current state of irrigation and its effects on food security were analyzed with a literature review and Ishikawa diagram, and the policies implemented by the government and relevant government agencies were evaluated. The article mainly deals with the current state of irrigation and food security targets.