Doctoral Dissertation Research: European Union Accession and Wheat Diversity in Neoliberal Turkey

全球市场导向政策的实施正在重塑生态系统和生计。农业生物多样性是与粮食和农业有关的生物多样性的一部分，以地方品种的形式保存在农民的田地里，这种转变对农业生物多样性尤其重要。近一万年来，土耳其的农民依靠并维持小麦地方品种来适应社会经济和环境的变化。然而，自20世纪90年代末以来，土耳其广泛的政治和经济转型开始以威胁小麦生物多样性的方式影响农民。这些转变源于新自由主义改革的一般过程，以及对各种国际组织的承诺，包括世界银行、国际货币基金组织、世界贸易组织，尤其是欧盟。本博士论文研究项目探讨了新自由主义，国家和农业生物多样性之间的联系和衔接。该项目提出了三个主要问题：1)土耳其政府在实施新自由主义农业政策和保护农业生物多样性方面的作用是什么？2)近期的农业政策将如何影响作物遗传资源的获取和分配？3)农民如何应对当前立法和农业政策的变化，特别是那些直接影响谷物和种子部门的变化？调查人员将通过分析1)国家和国际组织制定的农业文件，以及2)与国家官员和国际专家的半结构化访谈，确定国家农业政策的目标和衔接。该项目还将包括在土耳其西北部和安纳托利亚中部两个独立的研究地点进行当地人种学研究，以了解农民和农民组织对农业变化的反应。这个关于新自由主义的国家项目如何影响农民种植和维持小麦本土品种的能力的项目做出了多方面的贡献。在理论进步方面，该研究汇集了新自由主义国家和农业生物多样性方面的学术研究。在这样做的过程中，该项目将扩大和加深对新自由主义与自然之间关系的理解。就实际进展而言，研究结果将提供理论、经验和实践见解，为国家、非政府组织和农民组织提供重要和及时的数据，可用于制定原地保护政策。土耳其是中东地区唯一一个与国际项目合作开发抗病高产冬小麦品种并在国际上销售的国家。因此，了解土耳其新自由主义与农业生物多样性之间的联系，不仅对土耳其和中东，而且对整个世界都有潜在的粮食安全和作物改良意义。作为博士论文研究改进奖，该奖项还将提供支持，使有前途的学生建立一个强大的独立研究生涯。

The global implementation of market-oriented policies is remaking ecosystems and livelihoods. Transformations are especially significant for agricultural biodiversity, the part of biological diversity related to food and agriculture, which is maintained in farmers' fields in the form of landraces. For almost 10,000 years farmers in Turkey have relied on and maintained wheat landraces to adapt to socio-economic and environmental changes. However, extensive political and economic transformations in Turkey since the late 1990s are beginning to affect farmers in ways that threaten biodiversity of wheat. These transformations derive from a general process of neoliberal reform, and commitments to various international organizations, including the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, World Trade Organization, and especially the European Union. This doctoral dissertation research project explores the linkages and articulation between neoliberalism, the state and agricultural biodiversity. The project asks three primary questions: 1) What is the role of the Turkish state in articulation of neoliberal agricultural policies and conservation of agricultural biodiversity? 2) How will recent agricultural policies affect access to and distribution of crop genetic resources? 3) How do farmers respond to current legislative and agricultural policy changes, especially to those that directly affect the grains and seed sector? The investigators will identify the goals and the articulation of the state's policies on agriculture through analysis of 1) documents on agriculture produced by the state and by international organizations, and 2) semi-structured interviews with state officials and international experts. The project will also include local ethnographies at two separate research sites in Turkey, in northwestern and central Anatolia, to understand responses of farmers and farmers' organizations to changes in agriculture. This project on how state projects of neoliberalism affect farmers' ability to grow and maintain wheat landraces makes multiple contributions. In terms of theoretical advances, the research brings together scholarship on the neoliberal state and on agricultural biodiversity. In so doing, the project will broaden and deepen understanding of the relationship between neoliberalism and nature. In terms of practical advances, the results will offer theoretical, empirical and practical insights that will provide important and timely data to state, non-governmental, and farmers' organizations, which can be used for formulation of in situ conservation policies. Turkey is the only country in the Middle East region that as a collaborator of an international program develops disease-resistant and high-yielding winter wheat varieties and distributes them internationally. Therefore, understanding linkages between neoliberalism and agricultural biodiversity in Turkey has potential implications for food security and crop improvement, for not only Turkey and the Middle East, but the world in general. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this award also will provide support to enable a promising student to establish a strong independent research career.