Mechanized Fragility in Turkish Agriculture: Earthquakes, Capital Destruction and the Scarcity Trap

Natural disasters increasingly threaten global food security, yet the resilience of mechanized, middle‐income agriculture remains a puzzle. Standard development theory suggests households manage shocks by substituting labor for capital. We show this mechanism fails in modern, mechanized agriculture because substituting labor for destroyed capital is infeasible in the short run. We estimate the impact of the February 2023 earthquakes in Turkiye on agricultural supply, separating extensive margin adjustments (cultivated land) from intensive margin effects (yields). This disaster represents a unique ‘dual shock’: physical capital destruction coincided with a liquidity crisis that blocked asset replacement. To analyse this, we adapt the Agricultural Household Model using a Leontief (fixed‐proportions) representation as a short‐run limiting case. Empirically, we employ a Synthetic Difference‐in‐Differences strategy, combining district‐level crop statistics with remote sensing data. We find a significant contraction at the extensive margin: wheat cultivation declined by 8.5% relative to the pre‐treatment mean in the 2024‐restricted specification. Yet, we identify a ‘Null Yield Effect’ at the intensive margin. Yields remained stable or increased. This aligns with ‘Ricardian Selection,’ where producers—facing binding capital constraints—abandon marginal lands to concentrate resources on prime plots; consistent with this mechanism, the yield gain is concentrated in marginal, low‐quality districts and absent where land is better. Sharp declines in new tractor registrations (24%) and agricultural credit (16.5%) confirm a ‘Scarcity Trap.’ In high‐inflation, mechanized environments, cash transfers are insufficient. Policy must instead prioritize in‐kind capital replacement to bypass liquidity constraints and restore capacity.