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of supply, and/or marketing, in key areas of the economy (and not just agriculture).
Until about 1986 the CTCCB's Agricultural Supplies División used to import seeds
for producers, but after that the main marketing bodies took over supplying seeds to
their producers. For example, TÜK functions as the Grain Commission used to; it
provided (imported) cereal and potato seeds for producers, purchased the crop and
(where appropriate, e.g. potatoes) exported the crop 9 . Cypruvex, another state
company, was formed to market and manage the considerable citrus fruit industry
located in the north, acting as a marketing board and much more. At the same time
the Ministry of Settlement and Rehabilitation made land and grants available for
start-up farmers in the north 10 .
There is limited access and little publicly available data on the development, scale
and performance of the state sector in northern Cyprus. A case study based on a
series of interviews with the founder and former director of one such company is
therefore instructive 11 . The interview material provides an insight, not only into the
development of institutional innovations designed to alleviate strategic market
inadequacies, but also, at a more general level, the role of the public sector,
9 Their method of payment appears to be standard, a practice followed by TÜK, State Production
Farms, Cypruvex and the CTCCB: they pay the producers a fixed price on or soon after delivery of
the crop, after the déductions of credit (in kind or cash, for seeds and inputs) have been made. Just
prior to the designated settlement date for accounts (31 July for the CTCCB's Carob Division, 30
September for grain) a premium is paid to the farmers on the basis of the respective P&L (reflecting,
amongst other tliings, fluctuating domestic and world market prices). For certain crops such as
potatoes and carobs there is usually a surplus, so a premium is regularly paid to the farmers, for
other crops, such as cereals which can not be produced economically in northern Cyprus, a certain
amount of pooling through the states monopoly buying capacity and budgetary transfers means that
the state body simply pays a fixed price for the crop after delivery, and that price includes a price
support subsidy, so no premium is paid on settlement of accounts.
10 Grants were mostly in kind, eg. redistributing assets abandoned by Greek Cypriots, such as
livestock, seeds, fertilizers, tractors etc., with distributed at the local level being done by Village Coopératives:
Morvaridi, B. "Demographic Change, Resettlement and Resource Use", in Dodd 1993.
op. cit., p. 224.
11 This is an approach taken by other researchers working in northern Cyprus, see particularly
Behrooz Morvaridi: "Demographic Change, Resettlement and Resource Use", "Agriculture and the
Environment" and "Social Structure and Social Change", in Dodd 1993. op. cit., pp. 219-268. My
interviews with Ozalp Sarica, were carried out in his office, at the EMU, on the 17/3/95, 21/3/95,
24/3/95.
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