Dark Side Of The Miracle: Hunger and Food Insecurity In Turkey

Turkey has been praised as a remarkable success story among the developing economies as many countries in the Southern Meditterranean, the Middle East and North Africa suffered the impacts of global finanical crisis during the first decade of the 21st Century. The economy grew by 5% per year on average from 2002 to 2012 and per capita income increased up to 10,500 USD in 2011, from the modest 3,500 thousand dollars in 2002.As of 2012, Turkey was listed as the 17th largest economy in the world with a GDP of about 800 billion dollars. 

This paper explores the nature of progress towards poverty and hunger alleviation in the country during the same period. It shows that behind the neoliberal miracle of growth, there is escalation tendency for depeasantization, increase in urban poverty, decline in collective bargaining rights of labour unions, widening income gap between the rich and the poor, worsening of working conditions, increase in the percentage of of workers working for the minimum wage and high levels of youth unemployment. Despite these socially unfavourable social factors official figures celebrate success in terms of food security and fight against hunger.  

This paper will provide insights as to the causes and consequences of such "success" in food security while critically assessing the analytical and methodological utility of the concept.