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@what said above as well, Turkish farmers lacks the necessary knowledge and equipment to create automated farming systems. I have travelled all across Europe and especially in countries like France, Germany and Italy; I have seen that throughout the highways and even beyond what eye could see towards the horizon, they had automated fields. Especially in Italy, I've seen that almost all the vineyards have been automated to a certain point. This allows them to mass produce grapes and, consequently, make cheap wine.
In Turkey, most of the farms I've seen so far (of course there are certain automated farms with advanced technologies) have been based on hard labor. I live in Ankara, in the capital of Turkey, and there is a wheat field near my house. Almost every year, I watch farmers use really old tractors to till the crops, spread the seeds by hand, collect the product with the slowest and oldest harvest you would ever see, and then burn the stubble. Then each year, they complain about the low yield and how the prices are not in their favor etc. Meanwhile, Italians take the same amount of yield each year, time after time.
Turkey has enough land to feed itself and probably more than half of the entire Europe. But due to lack of all the necessary tools and know-how, Turkey just won't reach that same level of expertise in agriculture. I
In Netherlands, they fill the ocean to make lands for farming. If they can farm so much without even having enough land to plant, think of what Turkey could have done and still can!
When you're arriving in France, you can see fields and fields of crops, even before you land at the airport. I lived in the Auvergne region of France for a while and every time I went out of the city into the countryside, I was amazed by how much land has been planted. I know that the climate of Europe plays an important role in its agriculture. It rains in Auvergne almost throughout the year. But Turkey is rich with water. Even in the east, projects like GAP has allowed simple farmers in places like Şanlıurfa and Mardin to produce incredible yields. However, if you go to the east, you would also see that despite all the irrigation channels created by the GAP project, people just don't plant everywhere because it is hard labor and they lack the necessary tool and equipment, as well as education.
