Şahin Ardıyok, Senior Partner and Head of the Istanbul Competition and Antitrust team, spoke at a conference organized by the Turkish Industry and Business Association (TUSIAD) on November 27, 2014 at the Sabancı Center to introduce TUSIAD’s report on “Agriculture, Food and Livestock Competitive Capacity.”

Led by Şahin Ardıyok, Dentons’ Istanbul Competition and Antitrust team has been working collectively with agriculture economists, EU experts and TUSIAD representatives to prepare  the report which addresses problems in food, agriculture and livestock industries and competitive capacity. This introductory presentation of the report discussed preliminary findings, highlighting the importance of enhancing industrial competitive capacity—in order to improve the welfare of farmers—and the key role agriculture plays in rural development. The report further draws attention to factors such as climate change, food security, wild urbanization and the decrease in use of agricultural land due to transportation infrastructure and industrialization, which deteriorates and jeopardizes food security and competitive capacity.

The conference opened with speeches by Zafer Ali Yavan, the General Secretary of TUSIAD,  and Tuncay Özilhan, Head of the High Advisory Board of TUSIAD, and concluded with a special break-out session titled “G20 Presidency, Food Security and Competitive Capacity” presented by officials from the European Commission. 200 attendees, both from the public and private sector, including representatives from the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock, sectorial associations and executives of leading foreign and Turkish corporations took part in the conference.