Who gains from saving nature
Ledger 1 : 33 — For each dollar financing nature-based solutions in 2023, about $33 financed activities harmful to nature. (UNEP)
Cases / Agriculture, livestock and food · Turkey · 2001–2026

Turkish sugar law, starch-based sugar quota and 2018 sugar factory privatisation

Nature's voice · report
No measurement of the harm done to me here is on record.
Did nature suffer? Not measured.
Not on record
  • The record does not name which of my species, waters, soils or forests were harmed.
What the record lacks: 2 insufficient · 1 not measured · 3 disputed · 3 unclear See the gaps

Turkey's Sugar Law of 2001 capped the share of starch-based (maize) sugar in the national sugar quota, and the cap moved from 10% to 2.5% over two decades. A multinational maize-sweetener producer, a beet cooperative union, the Treasury and beet and tobacco growers all appear in the record as gainers or losers at different dates.

10% (2001) to 2.5% (2019 to 2026/27)Starch-based sugar share of the total sugar quota
Quota rules under Law No. 4634; 2.5% equals 72,750 tonnes.

Status As of October 2026: starch-based sugar quota at 2.5% (72,750 tonnes) for 2026/27; Law No. 7584 of June 2026 requires beet contracts; no court ruling on the Bursa plant found.

What?
Quota rules and privatisation that shaped the share of maize-derived sugar in Turkey's sugar market. mevzuat.gov.tr
Where?
Turkey; Orhangazi, Bursa. Başka Gazete
When?
2001 to 2026. mevzuat.gov.tr
Who?
Gained
  • Starch-based sugar companies (2002–2017) — Quota raised repeatedly under the authority's power to increase it by up to 50% Tarım Dünyası
  • The Treasury (2001–2017) — Reported saving of about US$5.4 billion (unverified)
  • Feed and white-meat industries and importers (maize) — Recorded as gainers from maize after 2018
Lost
  • Starch-based sugar companies (after 2018) — Quota cut to 5%, then 2.5% Tarım Dünyası
  • Sugar beet and tobacco growers (2001–2017) — Reported to have numbered in the hundreds of thousands; tobacco producers fell about 84% Bloomberg HT
  • The independent sugar regulator — Sugar Authority closed in 2017–2018
Harmed
None on record
Why?
The 2001 law followed commitments made to the IMF on cutting the beet quota and to the World Bank on cutting subsidies. IMF
How?
Statutory quota ceiling, annual quota decisions, factory privatisation in 2018 and, from 2026, mandatory beet contracts. mevzuat.gov.tr
6 of 6 questions answered from the record

What happened

The record, in order.

Law No. 4634 (the Sugar Law) of 2001 set the quota for starch-based sugar (NBŞ, in Turkish) at 10% of the total sugar quota and allowed the competent authority to raise or lower it by up to 50%. The quota was then repeatedly raised by 50%, to roughly 15%, according to a 2021 review of 20 years of quota practice.

In 2018 the ceiling in the law was lowered to 5% and, in the same year, the power to set the quota passed to the President. The Sugar Authority was closed in 2017–2018. From 2019 to the 2026/27 period the quota stood at 2.5%, or 72,750 tonnes. In 2023/24 the quota was split between Cargill (31,893 tonnes) and PNS Pendik (10,330 tonnes).

In 2018 a report written by Cargill, reported by the Turkish press, carried a scenario in which quotas were abolished and sugar factories privatised, so that starch-based sugar would rise from 15% to 48.5% of beet sugar in 2023. The report also gave water needs of 480 mm for maize and 900 mm for sugar beet. The beet cooperative union Pankobirlik rejected the report's claims as false. In 2018, 13 state sugar factories were sold for a total of about 4.85 billion Turkish lira; the buyers included Doğuş, Alteks, Kayseri Şeker, Safi, Erser-Sterk, Binbirgıda and Albayrak, and none was Cargill or another starch-based sugar company.

A separate line of dispute concerns Cargill's Orhangazi plant in Bursa: Turkish outlets reported in 2025 that it continued to operate despite 11 annulment decisions. The record also holds a 2008 report of a law approved under the presidency of Abdullah Gül, which bianet described as an amnesty law for Cargill; the intent behind the 2006–2008 provisions is asserted by critics and is not established in the sources reviewed.

In June 2026 Law No. 7584 provided that sugar beet may not be planted without a contract and that the Ministry sets the planting areas. As of the latest date in the record, the starch-based sugar quota remained at 2.5% for 2026/27.

  1. 2001Law No. 4634 sets starch-based sugar quota at 10% of the total; authority may raise or cut it by up to 50%
  2. 2008bianet reports President Gül approved a law described as an amnesty for Cargill
  3. 2018Ceiling lowered to 5%, quota power moves to the President; 13 sugar factories sold for about 4.85 billion lira; Cargill-written privatisation report reported by the press
  4. 2019Starch-based sugar quota set at 2.5%, kept through 2026/27 (72,750 tonnes)
  5. 2025Press reports Cargill's Bursa plant operating despite 11 annulment decisions
  6. 2026Law No. 7584 (June): sugar beet may not be planted without contract; Ministry sets planting areas

What was said

Claims, in the words of those who made them.

Where accounts differ

Each party's account, side by side, with its source. The record does not settle these points; it shows them.

Did Cargill's scenario or lobbying drive the decline of sugar beet farming?
Company or project
Cargill (2018 report)

The report set out a scenario in which, with quotas lifted and factories privatised, starch-based sugar would reach 48.5% of beet sugar in 2023.

Sözcü
Communities and civil society
Pankobirlik

Called the report's claims false.

Tarım Dünyası
Press and investigations
Turkish press and opposition

Sources differ on causation; reported accounts attribute the fall in small producers to policy rather than to falling tonnage.

Does starch-based sugar differ from sucrose in health effect?
Government and regulators
Ministry of Health Science Board (2018)

Said excess sucrose and starch-based sugar 'prepare the ground' for metabolic disease and asked that the quota not be increased.

Researchers
A review, partly supported by the maize refiners' association

Concluded that the two sugars are metabolically equivalent.

How it looked

What was shown, beside what was recorded.

Shown

  • Pankobirlik thanked the President after the quota fell, in a report headed that the beet producer's face had brightened.
    Yeni Akit, 2019 · Yeni Akit

Recorded

  • Quota for starch-based sugar: 10% in 2001; raised repeatedly by 50% (about 15%); 5% in 2018; 2.5% from 2019 to 2026/27 (72,750 tonnes).
    Tarım Dünyası
  • 2023/24 starch-based sugar quota: Cargill 31,893 tonnes, PNS Pendik 10,330 tonnes.
    İşçi Haber (via AA)
  • 2018 privatisation: 13 factories sold for about 4.85 billion lira; no starch-based sugar company among the buyers.
    Tarım Dünyası
  • Cargill's 2018 report gave 480 mm of water for maize and 900 mm for sugar beet.
    Sözcü

Who gained

Money that reached nature, beside money that stayed elsewhere.

Reached nature or the ground

Not published
No figure published.

Gained elsewhere

Not totalled
Sale of 13 state sugar factories, 2018 (total price)≈ 4.8bn
Stated in lira; millions.
Currency: TRY · Window: 2018. All figures cover the same period. * Estimate built from cited figures.

Responses on record

  • pankobirlik (2018): Rejected the claims of Cargill's 2018 report as false. · Tarım Dünyası

In court and with insurers

Every proceeding and every insurer decision on record.

Lawsuits and rulings

  1. Outcome not on record
    Annulment decisions concerning Cargill's Orhangazi (Bursa) plant
    Turkish administrative courts · Administrative · Not stated in the sources reviewed → Not stated in the sources reviewed

    A 2025 report said the plant continued to operate despite 11 annulment decisions. Başka Gazete

Insurers

No insurer decision on record.

What nature saw

Outcomes measured on the ground, and nature's note.

Nature's report opens this page. Below: further outcomes measured on the ground.

Water need per crop
480 mm vs 900 mm
Maize vs sugar beet, as stated in Cargill's 2018 report
Independent environmental assessment of the quota shift
Not found
The sources reviewed contain none

What we don't know

Undisclosed, unproven, untried: recorded as data.
No independent ecological evaluationUnder standard-setter review

Nature

  • Not measured Harm to nature: No independent ecological evaluation is on record.

Court

  • Unclear Annulment decisions concerning Cargill's Orhangazi (Bursa) plant: outcome not on record.

Accounts

  • Disputed Did Cargill's scenario or lobbying drive the decline of sugar beet farming?
  • Disputed Does starch-based sugar differ from sucrose in health effect?

Record

  • Unclear Cargill's lobbying spending in Turkey: no record found.
  • Unclear Whether the 2006–2008 legal provisions were adopted for Cargill's benefit: asserted by critics, not established.
  • Disputed Causes of the fall in small beet and tobacco producers: sources give differing accounts (Pankobirlik, a trade union and the opposition).
  • Insufficient Reported but not independently verified: the Treasury's saving of about US$5.4 billion between 2001 and 2017.
  • Insufficient Reported but not independently verified: that a review finding sucrose and starch-based sugar metabolically equivalent was partly funded by the maize refiners' association.

Did the harm stop?

The starch-based sugar quota fell from 10% to 2.5%; the record contains no ecological measurement of the effect.

Who paid?

The record names beet and tobacco growers as the losers of the 2001 to 2017 programmes; the sources reviewed do not say who bore any environmental cost.

Sources

Voices on record: ✓ Company or project✓ Government and regulators✓ Courts✓ Press and investigations✓ Communities and civil society— Researchers

Company or project

  1. Statistics
    Pankobirlik · n.d.

Government and regulators

  3. Law No. 4634 (Sugar Law)
    mevzuat.gov.tr · 2001

Courts

  1. ECtHR application no. 25680/05
    echrcaselaw.com · n.d.

Press and investigations

  1. Twenty years of the starch-based sugar quota
    Tarım Dünyası · 2021-06-09
  2. Sugar quotas for 2026/27 set
    İşçi Haber (via AA) · 2025

Communities and civil society

  1. Heinrich Böll Foundation Turkey, 2018
    Heinrich Böll Stiftung · 2018

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