Turkey and Israel to support agrarian breakthrough in Azerbaijan Analysis by Caliber.Az

The agro-industrial complex has been playing a major role in the economy of Azerbaijan after energy and transport, for many years. The ability of the national agro-industrial complex to qualitative transformation and production growth is especially important today in the light of the global food crisis aggravated amid the war in Ukraine. Having declared import substitution as the primary goal, the country's government is implementing a number of measures to reform the agro-industrial complex. New achievements of the domestic agricultural industry and the interests of international agribusiness have been displayed at the 27th international exhibition WorldFood Azerbaijan-2022 and the 15th agricultural exhibition Caspian Agro, which kicked off at Baku Expo Center on May 18.

The agricultural programs implemented by the government over the past two decades have contributed to the dynamic development of agricultural and logistics infrastructure and the technical equipment of farms and processing enterprises. The state policy on subsidizing rural producers and tax vacations for farmers, leasing agricultural machinery and breeding livestock, and providing soft loans contributed to the sustainable growth of agricultural production. This work has generally promoted the formation of the modern industrial base of agribusiness and provided import substitution for strategically important products, and today the share of local food accounts for about three-quarters of domestic consumption. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Azerbaijan took one of the best positions in the post-Soviet space in terms of food security, about eight years ago.

However, the global food crisis observed since last year has shown that the agro-industrial complex of Azerbaijan is still heavily dependent on imports of agricultural raw materials, high-yield seeds and breeding stock, semi-finished products, compound feed, food additives, vitamins, medicines and vaccines, containers and other components for the canning industry, agricultural machinery and equipment. As a result, an imported inflation hit the domestic agricultural production and food industry very hard, affecting the growth of prices for locally produced products.

To overcome this negative trend, the government set the task to accelerate agricultural reforms, and according to the "National priorities for socio-economic development: Azerbaijan 2030," major changes are expected in the agricultural sector, especially through the introduction of technical innovations and digitalization of management and control systems. The first steps in this direction have already been made - the information system "Electronic Agriculture" was launched.  Well, in the next 8-10 years, we need to focus foreign and domestic investments on the introduction of innovative agricultural technologies, reduce costs in the processing industry and increase productivity through technical innovation and consolidation of farms, including through the development of agricultural parks, cooperative forms of management, large logistics companies. These measures will eventually allow the development of highly competitive and mass commodity production focused on increasing exports and sustainable import substitution.

The above-mentioned basic trends in the development of the domestic agricultural and food industry have been demonstrated at the 27th Azerbaijan International Food Industry Exhibition WorldFood Azerbaijan 2022 which started on 18 May, and the 15th international agriculture exhibition Caspian Agro. It is noteworthy that the first WorldFood Azerbaijan forum was organized on the initiative of Iteca Caspian and ITE Group in 1995, and over the years almost 2,500 companies from about 50 countries have participated in the exhibition.

According to the representative of the Ministry of Agriculture of Azerbaijan Toghrul Gafarbeyli, the food and related agricultural exhibitions held for the twenty-seventh time are welcoming visitors with a record number of exhibitors - 450 companies from 25 countries, including a number of national and regional groups. It is noteworthy that this year the exhibition area has increased to 15 thousand square meters, and the number of debutants at the exhibition is about a third of the total number of participants. At the same time, a number of B2B meetings, Chef's Cup, Balik Ekmek fish festival, panel discussions and other events are planned to be held within the framework of the exhibitions. About three-quarters of all participants are foreign companies, and a considerable part of them are represented by non-CIS countries, which indicates the high interest of large international businesses and investors in the dynamically developing food market and technological and structural transformations implemented in the agricultural complex of Azerbaijan.

"The Caspian Agro and InterFood Azerbaijan exhibitions, which started today in Baku, are the largest exhibitions ever organized in the country, and they spark genuine interest among the participants," Agriculture Minister Inam Kerimov said at the opening ceremony of the forum.

"Of the total number of participants, 350 are foreign companies, and their interest in the exhibitions held in Azerbaijan is linked to the development dynamics of the agricultural sector in the country and the state support of the field". According to Kerimov, the forum is attended by agriculture ministers of Israel and Turkey, and other guests. Many important issues of bilateral cooperation in the agricultural sector will be discussed, during the exhibition.  

Such interest by international companies is justified by the large-scale plans for developing the agrarian potential of the Karabakh and East Zangazur economic regions, establishing "smart" villages here, introducing "green" technologies in the fields of agriculture and irrigation, as well as expanding the use of "artificial intelligence", IT services and drones in agriculture. The Smart Agro conference organized at the exhibition will be also devoted to promote advanced know-how in farming: it will present current and prospective projects implemented in the liberated territories.

The greatest interest in this regard is the participation of numerous Turkish and Israeli companies in the field of agribusiness, many of whom have already put forward proposals for the development of agricultural initiatives in the liberated territories.

"The Karabakh region has good potential for cooperation between Azerbaijan and Israel in the field of agriculture. Therefore, numerous companies were included in the Israeli delegation that arrived in Baku to participate in the Azerbaijan-Israeli agricultural business forum," Israeli Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Oded Forer said during a meeting with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. A key moment in talks with the head of our state was a discussion of the prospects of cooperation in the field of agriculture and the use of modern Israeli technologies in Azerbaijani agriculture.

Emphasizing that Azerbaijan has made tangible progress in improving the local production of agricultural products and their export, President Ilham Aliyev stressed that, at the same time, the country is working to maximize food security and reduce dependence on imports. The head of state also noted that in Karabakh and Eastern Zangazur, liberated from the occupation, the implementation of agricultural projects has begun and "certain results have already been achieved".

These achievements are planned to be multiplied, and here the knowledge, experience and agrarian technologies of Israel and Turkey are indispensable: it is expected that 50 Azerbaijani students will go to universities in Israel to gain experience in the field of agriculture this fall. It is planned to cooperate with Israeli companies in the sphere of production of high-yield seeds of vegetable and fruit crops, selection work, forming of "smart" greenhouse farms, and high-yield animal husbandry. Israel intends to provide Azerbaijan with unique technologies enabling to multiply the productivity of wheat, with a view to increasing the volume of grain production to a level enabling its export. Exchange of experience is also planned in the introduction of new economic technologies in irrigation, reduction of water loss in the irrigation network, restoration of fertility of saline and eroded soils, and extraction and purification of water in arid regions of our country. Not so long ago, an agreement was signed for this purpose between Azerbaijan Land Reclamation and Water Management OJSC and Mekorot, an Israeli company specializing in water management.

It is also appropriate to recall that Israeli and Turkish companies are already involved in pilot projects to create "smart" villages in Zangilan and Fuzuli districts, where renewable energy elements, computerized irrigation management systems, gas systems, automated farms and processing plants will be used, and drones will be actively used to control crops and land pollination. In turn, Turkish companies have begun to create the Dost agricultural park, where it is planned to form the largest livestock complex in the region for 4,000, and subsequently 10,000 heads of breeding cattle on an area of 6,000 hectares, and also build an integrated meat-processing and packaging plant and warehouses with a 100,000 tons production capacity. In the future, Turkish business has put forward a number of applications for the construction of agro-parks, enterprises for the production and processing of cotton and other industrial crops, etc. in the republic.

A business forum and B2B meetings are planned in the framework of agricultural exhibitions, and it is expected that new innovative projects and investment proposals in the field of agriculture will be put on the agenda.