The soils of Turkey: Nature, science, and crisis (1930–1960)

An environmental history of modern Turkey can begin with this question, one to which soil science was seen as a response during the early Cold War period. In 1939, the Turkish Sugar Factories Inc. administration invited van Dillewijn for an inquiry into the prospects of a cane sugar industry in Turkey. This chapter explores the state-sponsored “discovery” efforts in the 1930s and 1940s to formulate a scientific program for the sugar cane project. It discusses the processes resulting in the cessation of the sugar cane experiment in the context of the US Mission’s Technical Assistance Program. The chapter aims to demonstrate how various actors including scientists, politicians, and engineers contributed to the fabrication of an “experimental nature.” It explains why the sugar cane experiment came to a halt in the politically and financially conflictual context of the 1950s, out of which land emerged simultaneously as a “fictitious commodity” and “natural resource”.