The "Çorum Regional Agriculture Summit" was organized by the Independent Industrialists and Businessmen Association (MÜSİAD), hosted by the MÜSİAD Çorum Branch and coordinated by the MÜSİAD Food, Agriculture and Livestock Sector Board.
At the summit, attended by Mayor of Çorum Halil İbrahim Aşgın, Head of the MÜSİAD Trade Office Faruk Güzeldere and Chairman of the MÜSİAD Food, Agriculture and Livestock Sector Board Cemal Özen together with members, the agricultural potential and opportunities of the region were discussed.
Stating that as the municipality they have been carrying out agricultural production for several years on an idle area of 80 decares, Halil İbrahim Aşgın also explained that they had started propagation work by sowing on an area of 2.5 decares the heirloom seeds they had obtained in limited quantity.
Expressing that besides being a city of culture and industry the city is also a good agricultural city, Aşgın said, "Çorum is a city of civilization, it is a historical city of culture. The figures also show that the star of this region’s industry and trade is Çorum. When you add up the export figures of the neighbouring provinces, including the metropolitan city, they cannot reach Çorum. There is a side of Çorum that we do not voice, and that is its being an agricultural city."
Chairman of the MÜSİAD Food, Agriculture and Livestock Sector Board Cemal Özen also explained that academics and business people from the agriculture sector attended the summit and that they had organized an important meeting at which the agricultural potential of the region would be discussed.
Emphasizing that MÜSİAD has 186 branches at home and abroad and around 14,000 members, Özen noted that 10 percent of its members are in the agriculture sector.
Drawing attention to the fact that in a world where nationalism, wars and global warming are discussed, agriculture is a subject of high strategic importance for countries, Özen said, "In the world we are now moving from the subject of ‘How many weapons and how much technology do you have?’ to the subject of ‘How much and which food do you have?’. The most important, most strategic subject of countries is food and agriculture."
Noting that Türkiye ranks ninth in agricultural production but that the average age of farmers has risen to 57, Özen used the following expressions: "We need to make this younger. The most important pillar of making this younger is the establishment of agricultural high schools and, subsequently, having at least 2 universities devoted solely to agriculture. If we cannot explain the importance of agriculture to our young people, in the future our children will have great difficulty in reaching food."
After the summit, in which important speakers took part, the MTO 3T Networking programme was held under the chairmanship of Head of the MÜSİAD Trade Office Faruk Güzeldere with members from Sivas, Yozgat, Karaman, Konya, Düzce, Bursa, Sakarya, Tokat and Çorum.
