Новости/Аналитика

 

Turkey plans to increase industrial crops of technical hemp for the further use of hemp raw materials in the automotive, paper, textile industry, and among other things in order to reduce imports of hemp products, including from Ukraine and China.

 

The beginning of 2019 was marked by the resumption of discussions about the now practically uncultivated, but previously widespread cannabis cultivation culture in Turkey. The initiator of hemp initiatives in the country was Recep Tayip Erdogan, who raised the issue of the resumption of hemp production during a meeting with representatives of local administrations.

 

During the event, the Minister of Agriculture and Forestry of Turkey Bekir Pakdemirli said that the government plans to take measures to increase the area on which cannabis will be grown. According to him, at the moment a number of enterprises that can cultivate or process plants are licensed, but their number should increase significantly in the near future.

 

Agricultural producers in various regions of the country have been extremely positive about the government’s initiatives to reanimate the Turkish hemp industry. In particular, the farmers of the Black Sea provinces Kastamonu and Rize welcomed this kind of statement by the President of the country. In their speeches, the agricultural producers of Kastamonu noted that in spite of the external negative impact on local growers in the province, the cultivation of the plant stopped only in 2002. Industrial crops of cannabis were replaced in the majority with garlic and sugar beet, however, the income received from the above-mentioned crops could not compensate for the previously obtained profits from the cultivation of technical hemp. Cannabis producers were included in almost all provincial agricultural administrations in the region, which allowed them to significantly influence regional policy. Cannabis were selling raw materials to a local paper mill that manufactured cigarette paper. Today, these capacities use imported pulp as the main raw material base for pulp production.

 

Representatives of the Kendirli district of Rize province noted that the region is called that because of the huge amount of cannabis cultivated earlier on its territory. Locals from the hemp fiber from ancient times spun "Rizka fabric" from which they made shirts "feretiko". This tradition is an important cultural element of the inhabitants of the region, whose origins are lost somewhere in the 9th century BC. Despite the ban on the cultivation and processing of cannabis, from the 70s of the last century, imported hemp fiber from which the Rizka fabric is woven and also made by feretiko has been imported to the province to this day.

 

 

The history of the cultivation of cannabis in the Turkish territory dates back to 1800-1500. BC, and the country not only grew and processed hemp raw materials, but it was also actively used, as well as brisk trade in various hemp products with the countries of both the Asian and European continents. Since ancient times, the Western and Central Black Sea regions of Turkey have been especially effectively used for the cultivation of plants. Until 1971, when the Turkish army overthrew the government led by Suleiman Demirel (did not want to reduce the production of hemp, despite pressure from the US administration), Turkey was one of the largest producers of hemp raw materials in the world. In particular, in 1961, Turkish farmers grew cannabis on an area of ​​about 14 thousand hectares, in 2017 this figure was only 11.3 acres. In 1961, about 5000 tons of hemp fiber were produced in the country, in 2018 - about 7 tons. In the period from 2015 to 2018, the export of cannabis in the country was estimated at 13 tons in the amount of $ 24 thousand, imports for the same period amounted to 4,521 tons in the amount of $ 5.8 million.