The productivity and competitiveness of Turkish agriculture have been constrained by socio-economic weaknesses in rural areas and a protective trade and subsidy regime, which has created a status quo of highly fragmented, low-skilled, low-technology and domestic-market-driven farming. A major reform based on cutting distortive price and input subsidies and replacing them with direct income support was introduced in 2000-01, but there are risks that the reform will be less successful than anticipated. The reform effort should be reinvigorated and backed by improved framework conditions – legal infrastructure, technology transfer services, irrigation and other infrastructures – needed for the stronger development of commercial agriculture.