THE ROLE AND IMPORTANCE OF VEGETABLES IN THE GLOBAL ECONOMY AND TURKEY

Abstract

Global agricultural trade is very important for developing countries. The global gains of agriculture and food trade liberalization seriously affect the agricultural sector. In this context, the insufficiency of policies the countries’ causes trade problems. Agricultural issues draw attention in the evaluation of both global and domestic policies in the WTO negotiations. The aim of this study is to evaluate the fresh vegetable production in world markets. It is also to reveal the potential of countries. According to FAO data for 2017, total vegetable production was 1.1 billion tons on an area of 58.2 hectares in the world. China, India and the USA are the most important vegetable producing countries. Turkey is fourth in the world vegetable production. The most produced vegetable is tomato in the world. Among the vegetables produced it ranks first in Turkey, also. Turkey's tomato amount of production is 8.4 million tons. However, the amount of vegetable consumption is not known exactly. For this reason, the real changes cannot be clearly demonstrated. The most important problem in vegetable production is the marketing of products. The competitive power of the fresh fruit and vegetable in terms of price, quality and reliability should be increased in global markets. Production should be made in accordance with consumer preferences. The products should be able to be substituted in the world markets. Thus, it will increase its contribution to the improvement and development of countries.