There have been important changes in the top management of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. The most eye-catching appointment was realized for the Turkish Grain Board (TMO). Replacing İsmail Kemaloğlu, Ahmet Güldal, who had been the deputy secretary of the ministry since November 2017, will chair the board. The flour industry took this appointment as a positive sign as Güldal is very well aware of the sector’s problems.

Within the executive order signed by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, ten general managers were discharged from their duties at the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. According to the executive order printed at the Official Gazette on August 19, the former deputy secretary of the ministry since November 2017, Ahmet Güldal, was appointed as the new general manager, replacing İsmail Kemaloğlu who was the General Manager and Chairman of the Board of Directors. Güldal started his duty on August 27, 2018. “We wish success Ahmet Güldal that has been appointed as the General Manager and Chairman of the Board of Directors of TMO,” the Turkish Flour Industrialists’ Federation said on its official social media account when commenting on the appointment. GÜLDAL KNOWS THE SECTOR VERY WELL Ahmet Güldal was born in 1964 at Kemaliye district of Erzincan, an eastern city of Turkey. He graduated from an agriculture vocational high school in 1981 and from the Faculty of Agriculture of Ankara University on 1987. He worked as engineer at Zonguldak’s Provincial Directorate of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs between 1989 and 1990. Until 2000, he worked as the Branch Director of Project and Statistics in Zonguldak. Later, he moved to Malatya and worked there until 2009 as the Director of Provincial Directorate of Agriculture and Rural Affairs. He acted as Izmir’s Provincial Directorate of Food, Agriculture and Livestock between August 2009 and November 2017. He had begun his duty at the ministry as the deputy secretary on November 24, 2017.