Discussing the Near Future of Producer Cooperative’s in Turkey while the Sugar Mill’s Privatizing: The Case of the Union of Beet Growers Cooperatives (Pankobirlik)

Pankobirlik has established in 1972 by 19 beet cooperatives and Turkey Sugar Factories Inc. Besides its services renders in harmony with agricultural production and efficiency of Turkish beet farmers, Pankobirlik aims to contribute to the development of social structure within rural areas. Pankobirlik is an organization which has approximately 1.5 million beet grower partners, sowing beet in 64 cities and 13.750 settlement units, serving with 321 outlets of 31 beet cooperatives and five sugar factories in different cities of Anatolia (Amasya, Kayseri, Boğazlıyan, Konya, and Çumra) and with over 50 agricultural shareholdings. There are 33 sugar factories in Turkey and Pankobirlik has five. Remaining three factories have owned by the private sector, and 25 factories owned by the public sector. In 2018, 14 of public sector factories have privatized almost in two months. The privatization and closure/capacity reduction process of sugar mills may turn into a reality, which threatens the existence of sugar producers, cooperatives and also their representative and senior organization of Beet Cooperatives, Pankobirlik. There are two reasons: the first reason is about the closure of sugar mills, and sales of factory sites. The second reason is the risk of capacity reduction after the privatization. Both reasons will probably to push producers to withdraw from sugar beet production, because of rising costs, mainly transportation. Because the sugar beet has to be processed right after the harvest, so the locations of sugar mills need to be close to the fields. Thus the privatization of all publicly owned factories has the potential to leave the beet producers vulnerable to the private sector’s cost minimization principle. Pankobirlik doesn’t hold a position against privatization but, it demands to transfer of operating rights (TOOR) of factories to beet producer cooperatives. In this study, we will trace essentials of a sustainable cooperative strategy (other than its current strategy), which may pursue by Pankobirlik to avoid potential negative impacts of privatizations on cooperatives and producers, via findings obtained from several in-depth interviews with Pankobirlik authorities from different levels.