Abstract :
Turkey’s agricultural sector has remarkable dynamics of change in production, international trade and employment. Turkey is an important cereal producing country. Its external dependency is rising, particularly in grain production, and is approaching the global average. This negatively affects wheat production, which plays a vital role in food security. This study aims to explore, using spatial econometric methods, the spatial dynamics of the geographical distribution of wheat production in districts considering production area, production amount and productivity. The short term sustainability of wheat producing districts was evaluated. Districts with an increasing area of wheat production and productivity are more sustainable. According to this study, the most sustainable districts are in Thrace, the western side of the South East Anatolia and the Aegean region. Central Anatolia, known as the granary of Turkey, did not have sufficiently high levels of sustainability. Central Anatolia Region had low levels of spatial interaction in wheat production.
NaturalLanguageKeyword :
Food security , Wheat production , Geographic information systems , Spatial econometrics , Sustainability
