One aspect of Turkey’s European Union accession that has generated little attention by scholars is agriculture, which is undergoing a comprehensive series of transformations with profound effects for farmers. Agriculture also lies at the heart of Turkey’s neoliberal policies as required by international lenders such as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. However, the Turkish government has often legitimized these new agricultural policies solely as a component of Turkey’s EU accession. These new policies have generated sharp debates among policy makers, farmer groups, and activists, and these discussions are likely to intensify as the policies affect farmers. An important example of this agricultural restructuring involves Turkey’s recent formulation of a series of laws to regulate seed production, exchange, distribution, and marketing that reduces farmers’ traditional roles in producing their own seeds. On the one hand, EU regulatory proscriptions might be regarded as central to Turkey’s new seed laws: EU regulations include directives on the regulation of plant varieties and provide a “common catalogue” of recognized categories of seeds that can be marketed freely in member states. On the other hand, it is possible to question the extent to which “Europeanization” alone is responsible for the establishment of seed governance mechanisms in Turkey. To address the contested nature of agricultural changes in line with European Union harmonization, I analyze the perceptions of several actors in the debate (state officials, farmers, farmer group representatives, and non-governmental organization representatives) on the significance and role of EU harmonization in seed regulation and the effects of seed governance mechanisms at the level of farmers. This study draws on official documents and interviews with relevant actors that were carried out in autumn 2007, and contributes to discussions on the effects of European Union accession by examining Turkey’s experience at the level of national policies and perceptions of several actors on European seed laws and agricultural changes.