A fuzzy cognitive map approach to understand agricultural system and food prices in Türkiye: policy recommendations for national food security

Once one of the few self-sufficient food countries in the world, Turkey has become dependent on imports to feed its population. Food prices have climbed to among the highest in the world, severely threatening the food security of the country. Most researchers generally attributed the high prices to the increased input costs of agriculture. Although the role of input prices cannot be denied, this paper focuses on a neglected problem that can account for food price inflation: the attitudes and behaviours of farming communities towards agriculture. Through fuzzy cognitive map methodology, known to be very effective in understanding complex networks of problems, we identify and map the relationships among the factors affecting the agriculture system, develop interview and literature-driven scenarios, and test these scenarios to demonstrate their role in explaining the relationship between attitudes and behaviours of farming communities and food prices in Turkey. Our findings provide recommendations to policymakers.