The Transformation of Land into a Valorization Area through Two Legal Regulations

Abstract

This article argues that two recent legal interventions in Turkey, the Law on Soil Conservation and Land Use (TKAKK) and the Regulation on Leasing Uncultivated Agricultural Land (İTAY), mark a qualitative threshold in the capitalist transformation of agriculture. Drawing on Marxist rent theory, it examines how state intervention restructures land ownership and use in favor of capital accumulation. Through the concepts of absolute rent and differential rent (I and II), the article demonstrates how these regulations integrate agricultural land more directly into capitalist valorization processes. Rather than merely addressing inefficiency, these measures accelerate the withdrawal of small producers from agriculture, deepen proletarianization, and reconfigure rural class relations. In this sense, the article argues that recent legal interventions function as mechanisms that expand the integration of agricultural land into capitalist accumulation and valorization processes.