“Sustainable Agriculture City Kocaeli Project”, which is a social R&D project lasting 11 months in 2021 and 2022, was carried out under the leadership of ŞURA Urban Policies and Research Center established within Kocaeli Metropolitan Municipality, in cooperation with Kocaeli Governorship, universities, chambers of industry and commerce, Eastern Marmara Development Agency and Kocaeli City Council. Prof. Hamza ATEŞ, a faculty member of our university, also took part in the execution of the project and contributed to academic research.
The project in question was produced in order to;
- Promote sustainable agriculture within the framework of the zero hunger principle, which is one of the UN Sustainable Development Goals
- develop urban agriculture, and
- contribute to food security by ensuring the development of agriculture with modern techniques and methods in Kocaeli, which has a significant agricultural potential even though it is known as an industrial city.
An important aspect of the project is that it adopts an appropriate method for “Improving policy coherence for sustainable development“, which is included under the title of “Partnerships for the Goals”, one of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. As a matter of fact, creating a local governance mechanism by bringing together public institutions, agricultural industry organizations, other private sector organizations and producers was among the main objectives of the project.
Sustainable Agriculture City Kocaeli Project was carried out in 3 basic stages. In the first stage, a data inventory study was conducted to determine the current situation and the strengths and weaknesses of Kocaeli province for sustainable agriculture. At this stage, good agricultural production and sustainable agriculture practice examples and projects were compiled at home and abroad. In the second stage, a quantitative academic research was conducted by taking 1506 producers interested in agriculture and livestock activities in Kocaeli province as a sample. In the third stage, an Agricultural Council and Workshop was held with the participation of all stakeholders of the agricultural sector throughout the province. The Agriculture Council witnessed the participation of 500 people, and the Sustainable Agriculture Workshop witnessed the participation of 238 people. The project results were compiled into a report and shared with relevant institutions and organizations, and it was also decided to publish it as a book later.