Turkey and the Crawford Fund

Turkey and the Crawford Fund

DG Blight

I visited the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock’s General Directorate of Agricultural Research and Policies on 28 March meeting with Dr Masum Burak, Director General.

I also met Dr Emin Donmez, Wheat Breeder in the Wheat Breeding Unit of CRIFT; and Namuk Ergun, Barley Breeder of the Barley Breeding Unit of CRIFT.  Donmez and Ergun were both Crawford Fund trainees. We were accompanied throughout by Akin Aras and Canan Yagci both of the Turkish Seed Gene Bank.

The Director General formally welcomed me to the General Directorate. He is well informed on the work of the CGIAR and CABI in general and is a Board member of ICARDA.  

He has not yet visited Australia but wishes to do so in the context of Turkey’s decision to establish a national botanic garden, described briefly below. He has recently visited Kew Gardens, which he admired greatly, but would also like to see the Botanic Gardens of Perth, Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra and - at my suggestion - CSIRO and its 

Cyclotron.  

CRIFC has a broad range of programs set out in a promotional booklet that I will place in the Crawford Fund library and which may also be available at www.tarim.gov.tr or www.tagem.gov.tr.  It covers all the usual fields in plant and animal science.  Its budget has grown steadily from around 7 million liras in 2002 to 85 million in 2012.  Turkey aims to increase the ratio of R&D investment to GDP from its current level of 0.9 per cent to 2.5 per cent by 2020.  Its R&D programs include a private sector support program, an Institutes-Private Sector Collaboration Program, and an international collaboration program embracing the CGIAR and education and infrastructure program with the Turkish International Cooperation and Development Agency TIKA).

We agreed that the Fund and CRIFC might be able to cooperate in the following contexts: in areas of national interest of both Turkey and Australia, where the Fund could provide minimal support to introduce the parties to each other but where financing of cooperative activities would be the responsibility of the relevant Turkish and Australian research centres and agencies; and activities in poorer neigbouring countries in West Asia and North Africa. 

The Master Class in Soil Borne Pathogens, which took place in Turkey in 2011 is an example but there will be other opportunities. There may be opportunities for funding from TIKA, although I did not explore this with CRIFC.

The newly established Turkish Seed Bank was the main focus of our discussion. We were given presentation on it by Canan Yagci, representing   Kursad Ozbek (ozbekkursad@yahoo.com) who has recently visited Australia under Crawford Fund auspices but was absent in Izmir. She is pictured here with me and Akin Aras. She has undertaken to send me a copy of her power point presentation.

It appears to me to be an excellent facility.  It is described in its promotional document as the ‘third largest Seed Gene Bank of the world’ and was opened at CRIFC in Ankara in 2010. It is said to have the conservation capacity for 250,000 seed samples and 60,000 herbarium specimen samples. 

The following day, in company with the former Turkish Ambassador to Australia, Mr Murat Ersavci and Mrs Ersavci, we drove out to the site of the planned National Botanic Garden. Some 220 hectares of land have been set aside near the campus of the Ministry in greater Ankara on the Eskisehir road between Bilkent (private) and Haceteppe Universities. Already there is evidence of plantings for an aboretum.

Perhaps of particular interest is the International Agricultural Research and Training Centre 

established in Izmir in 2009.  It has organised training activities in cooperation with TIKA, ISEDAK, ICARDA and FAO.

Team Australia might think of mounting an activity of some sort to coincide with the celebrations planned throughout 2015 to mark 100 years since the first landing of ANZAC troops at Gallipoli. It is the wish of both countries that these celebrations should be about more than a savage but noble conflict of long ago.  I have suggested elsewhere that consideration be given to a major Australian educational exhibition in Turkey in 2015.