Evaluation of Good Agricultural Practices within the Scope of Sustainable Agriculture: the Case of Malatya

To meet the food needs of the rapidly expanding global population after the 1950s, developed countries thought that by using more fertilizers in agricultural areas, productivity would increase and more yield would be obtained. Unfortunately, excessive use of artificial fertilizers and chemical pesticides generated environmental challenges. In many places, soil fertility has been depleted, becoming barren, and the yield obtained from the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides have become a threat to human and environmental health. To solve these challenges, international organizations and nations have begun to develop sustainable agriculture models for healthy nutrition organizing associated meetings and conferences. As a result of the related studies, several sustainable agricultural practices have been proposed. One of these practices is entitled Good Agricultural Practices (GAP); and alternative, sustainable agriculture model that is spreading rapidly across the world that has been implemented in Turkey since 2007. Malatya is one of the provinces where GAP is applied in Turkey. This study investigates the importance of sustainable agriculture, the of GAP, its development over the years internationaly and in Turkey, and progress since its implementation in Malatya to the present.