Today, around 1,100 million tons of corn is produced all over the world. Approximately 675 million tons of corn is used in animal nutrition. In other words, approximately 60% of the corn produced in the world is used in animal feeding. Corn production champions can be ranked as the United States, China, Brazil, Argentina, and the European Union, respectively.

Hasan Kara Deputy Director General Yay-Tar Yem Ham Maddeleri

Corn is one of the important grains in the world. In addition to its consumption as human food and animal feed, it is also used in starch, syrup, beer, industrial alcohol (ethanol), bioplastic, and whiskey production industries. The homeland of the corn plant is Mexico-Guatemala in Central America and it has been grown as the main crop of the region for thousands of years. It was understood by the archaeological excavations that corn existed while there were no people on the continent. After the continent is discovered, corn was brought to Europe by Christopher Columbus in 1493 and it was taken to Asia through North Africa from here in the 15th century. This crop was taken to the Far East countries such as India and China. It entered Turkey through Egypt. It is one of the plants that give a very high level of yield under suitable ecological conditions.

According to the International Grain Council (IGC, 2020) data, today, around 1,100 million tons of corn is produced all over the world. Approximately 675 million tons of corn is used in animal nutrition. In other words, approximately 60% of the corn produced in the world is used in animal feeding. The total import volume is around 165 million tons. Corn production champions can be ranked as the United States, China, Brazil, Argentina, and the European Union, respectively.

Turkey has increased corn production in the last 10 years in terms of yield and production quantity. However, it remained at very low levels compared to world corn production data. 6.38 million decares of land are cultivated and yielded 6 million tons of corn in Turkey in 2019. Corn production per decare increased to around 939 kg on average. The increase in conscious agriculture samples, land reclamation, and development of irrigation projects have bolstered the increase in yield.

In Turkey, Konya and Adana take the lead in corn production. Production, which was 5.7 million tons in 2018, increased by 5.3% in 2019 and reached 6 million tons. In this, the fact that corn has become more advantageous in terms of profitability in the competition with cotton has a determining effect. Recently, an increase in the cultivation area has been observed also in the Central Anatolia Region and the Aegean Region on top of the traditional corn cultivation areas such as the Eastern Mediterranean Region and Southeast Anatolia Region. As for production by province; Konya, Adana, and Mardin are taking the lead (as of 2018).

Although corn production has exceeded 6 million tons, this is not enough for the total demand coming from the Turkish market. The import graph is continuously going up every year. According to The Turkish Grain Board's (TMO) data, corn use amount exceeded 7.8 million tons as of 2017/18 whereas 6.4 million tons of it is used in feed production.

Turkey imported 3.6 million tons (680 million dollars) of corn in 2019. Along with the production, there are 10.5 million tons of total available corn opening stock, of which 7.8 million tons are used in feed, 1.3 million tons are used in food, and 0.4 million tons are used in the industry. Although Russia has always been the first country to import corn to Turkey, Ukraine has risen to the top very quickly as of 2019.

Turkey produced 25 million tons of compound feed in 2019. Corn constitutes 30% of total compound feeds.

The shear with international market prices has narrowed. While the difference between domestic corn market prices and international market prices has been in a decreasing trend since the marketing period of 2015/2016, it decreased well in 2017/2018 and reached $35/ton. In this development, the effect of the decreasing tendency seen in international market prices, although small, and the increase in domestic exchange rates are important. As a matter of fact, in August 2018, the last month of the 2017/2018 marketing year, the selling rate of US $ increased from 4.76 (July rate) to 5.74, which brought the price from $200.4/ton to $157.1. The decrease in the TL-based price from 949 TL/ton to 940 TL/ton in the same months clearly reveals that the decrease rate is much lower than the $ based price and the effect of the increase in the exchange rate. Along with the sudden increase in the exchange rate effect, the upward trend in the domestic market price based on $ supports this.

There are 4 main components of the corn policy. These are; • TMO purchases • Deficiency payment • Input supports • Foreign trade applications

TMO is the most important market maker in the products it purchases and it can buy corn depending on international prices and other market conditions. In purchases made by TMO, most of the corn is bought by the cash purchase method, as well as purchase by the force account. The amount of purchase varies according to TMO's purchase policy and the market situation.

Prices implemented for TMO corn purchases have increased from 430 TL/ton to 950 TL/ton throughout the 2008-2018 period. In 2019, purchases were made with 1150 TL/ton.

In order to follow the global markets and make reasonable purchases, cultivation and harvesting periods should be followed. Table 7 can be used for this.

In summary, because cotton and soybean became advantageous due to the price structure and incentives, corn production fell by 3.4% down to 5.7 million metric tons at the end of 2017/18 season. In 2019/20, this situation was reversed and production increased to 6 million tons again. However, the level of 2015/2016 season, 6.4 million tons, has not been exceeded yet. Rapidly growing demand approaching 8 million metric tons makes corn imports inevitable. While corn import was 2.9 million tons in 2018/19, it was 800 thousand tons in the first 4 months in 2019/20. It was 3.6 million tons on an annual basis (2019). The main reasons for this high amount of imports are the increase in the rate of corn use in feed rations due to the import made within the scope of the inward processing regime documents transferred from the previous year and corresponding price advantages.

References: TURKSTAT, 2020. Agriculture, Price and Foreign Trade Database USDA, 2020. PSD Database FAO, 2020. FPMA Database TOB, 2020. TOB Website TMO, 2019. Grain Sector Report 2018 TMO, 2020. Corn Sale Practices and Daily Market Bulletin Trademap TEPGEM (Agricultural Economy and Policy Development Institute) Turkish Chamber of Agricultural Engineers, Corn Report 2018 International Grains Council, Corn Bulletin, General Directorate of Plant Production Department of Agricultural Basins