News
28.10.2009
Canadian wheat troubles Turkish producers
Canada is one of the leading traders of wheat in the world even though Anatolia is the originator of the grain and has been producing it for thousands of years. The competition between Turkish and Canada producers, which has “the world’s best wheat quality system guarantee,” is very difficult for the former due to the low number of enterprises, low technology usage, high costs and a lack of variety standard, a recent seminar has revealed.
The seminar on the Canadian wheat classification system was conducted by Graham Worden, the director of the marketing strategy department of the Canadian Wheat Board, or CWB.
The classification of wheat is very important especially for marketing, Ayhan Karayama, vice general director of the Turkish Grain Board, or TMO, said during the opening of the seminar. “The classification has loomed large due to qualification problems in production this year. Learning of Canada’s classification system will contribute to the improvement in the sector’s awareness of categorization in Turkey.”
Hamit Köksel, an academic at the Food Technologies Department of Hacettepe University, said that even though the gene pool of wheat is found in Anatolia, the U.S. and Canada, which have only been producing wheat for 100 to 150 years, are the dominant countries in the global market.
Some 75,000 farmers in western Canada produce 50 million tons of grain on 24 million hectares, said Worden. Canada, which has a population of 31 million, exports around 75 percent of its production, he added.
Noting that a tight control system is applied to obtain the best quality for export purposes, Worden said, “In Canada, the world’s best wheat quality guarantee system is implemented. We have developed this system for export purposes. Our customer is always sure that the wheat coming from Canada has the best classification.”
Farmers always want to have productive crop types resistant to diseases, he said. “In Canada, 25 different kinds of wheat are produced. The origins of all these come from Central and Eastern Europe, Russia and Ukraine. Besides, we do not allow the production of all types of wheat in Canada. We have developed ourselves 99 percent of the species that are currently produced.”
Test process
Worden said that they make tests for three years before the registration of a new kind of wheat. “In the evaluation committee, there are 150 people from different sectors and institutions. The functional quality of a kind is more important than its productivity.”
The figures presented by Worden have revealed the differences between the grain production conditions of Turkey and Canada. Because enterprises are large in Canada, farmers can operate their equipment anytime they wish and can keep the products in their own warehouses. The CWB wants farmers to send crops when it sells those at hand. The crops sent to the CWB are blended in 350 facilities that have an operating capacity of 6.4 million tons. These crops are then exported from 15 ports that have a capacity of 2.7 million tons.
According to the data presented at the seminar, the average size of agricultural enterprises is around only six hectares in Turkey, with 2.5 million farmers producing 33.4 million tons of grain. Technology usage is low due to the small size of enterprises, which, in turn, has a negative impact on productivity. Some 60 to 65 kind of wheat are produced in Turkey, a fact that prevents classification and the maintenance of quality and causes warehousing problems.
In the seminar, Worden also informed listeners about the weather map database developed for farmers in western Canada. The system implemented on the farmers’ field sends weather forecasts to farmers via the Internet. Thus, farmers can instantly follow the latest weather conditions.
Within the “Weather Forecast Network” developed by WeatherBug in Canada, some 700 stations have been installed to date. The systems are built for $1,750. In the seminar, Worden also proposed the establishment of a global weather forecast network in Turkey.
Hurriyet Daily News
