Making the opening speech of the second day of Uludag Economy Summit organized by Capital, Economist and StartUp magazines Minister of Agriculture and Forestry Dr. Bekir Pakdemirli emphasized that it is inevitable to create a sustainable economy on the basis of the green economy. “Staying strong in these three vital areas will be possible by anticipating the future correctly, creating long-term policies, and managing the process correctly,” said Pakdemirli stating that as the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, they have implemented projects that will guarantee food security, use water efficiently and increase forest assets in this process GLOBAL FOOD PRICE INDEX IS THE HIGHEST IN THE LAST 46 YEARS Pakdemirli said, “The global food price index announced by FAO rose to 133.2 in October 2021, reaching the highest level in the last 46 years in which annual records were kept” adding that the effects of global warming and climate change have been experienced. THE FUTURE OF AGRICULTURE LIES IN R&D AND INNOVATION Stating that they use 1 billion TL annually for R&D studies, Pakdemirli said, “We know very well that the future of agriculture lies in R&D and innovation.” Saying that five and a half billion saplings have been dibbled in the last 19 years, Pakdemirli expressed, “Starting from burned forest areas with our ‘Breath to the Future’ campaign, we started the planting of 252 million saplings, three saplings for each of our citizens.” Stating that the agriculture sector has continued to grow uninterruptedly for the last twelve quarters, Pakdemirli said, "Our agricultural output has increased by 78 percent in the last three years, reaching 337 billion TL in 2020, breaking the record of the history of the Republic." Expressing that agricultural output is the leader in Europe and among the top ten in the world, Pakdemirli said that they have a foreign trade surplus of 15.4 billion dollars in agriculture.