Turkish greenhouse industry: Past, present, and future

Abstract

This paper examines the current status of the Turkish greenhouse industry and highlights issues important for its competitiveness. The greenhouse industry is the fastest-growing segment of agriculture in Turkey, mainly because of favourable climatic conditions. However, in recent years the greenhouse industry has been forced to adopt an increasingly competitive place in the market. The competitive market environment for greenhouse produce does not necessarily provide growers with any assurances about sales volume, a sufficient price, or favourable financial outcome. Currently, greenhouse operators in Turkey face problems such as declining crop prices, price fluctuations based on over-supply, poor market systems and sales uncertainty, and lack of grower cooperatives. These problems have resulted in income uncertainty and market risks for greenhouse operators. In addition, strong dependency on imported inputs and excessive use of chemicals are other weaknesses of the Turkish greenhouse industry. © 2005 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.