During the last couple of years, the increase in food prices is one of the most sensitive topics in Turkey's economic and political agenda. Since the beginning of last summer, the food prices were rising almost uncontrollably. According to official data, the price increase was 30%, but traders say that prices have doubled in just one year.
Although President Erdogan blames the big supermarket chains for the unfair price increases, the structural problems in the country’s agriculture sector - rising oil and fertilizer prices, and heavy drought during the last 2 years - are also part of the reason why food inflation increased dramatically. Economists also point to government policy decisions that saw the Turkish Lira dive to record lows last year, hiking import costs on some $9 billion in food.
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