The protein system
Turkey had 119.7 grams of protein per person a day in 2023.[7, 6] Poultry output is forecast at 2.9 million tonnes in 2026, more than the 2.455 million eaten at home. Dairy output has fallen since 2022.[3, 2] Wheat harvests rise and fall with drought. Turkey grew 16.5 million tonnes in 2025/26 and used 18.8 million, and the harvest is forecast to recover to 19.8 million in 2026/27.[1] It imports 6.5 to 7.2 million tonnes of wheat, much of it to make flour and pasta for export in 550 mills that can handle 33 million tonnes.[1]
So what Turkey buys is feed and farm inputs, not protein. Food was 6.21 per cent of its goods imports in 2024. Food and farm exports earned US$35.4 billion, against US$6.8 billion of imported consumer food.[15, 6] Because the feed and inputs are imported, livestock output is exposed to disruptions further back in the supply chain.
Durable domestic capacity:
Turkey exports more poultry, eggs, dairy and farmed fish than it imports, and most of its meat comes from animals slaughtered at home.[2, 3] Drought and a shrinking herd weaken that base. Cattle numbers are forecast to fall 4 per cent in 2026, slaughter weights are down from more than 400 kg to 270 to 300 kg, and 400,000 to 500,000 calves are lost each year.[2] The price farmers get for milk is still below what it costs them to produce.
The poultry surplus depends on a scheme that lets in feed grain and oilseeds free of duty, as long as the meat is exported. USDA judges that this weakens the push to rely less on imported feed, so much of the surplus is built on imports.[3] Disease keeps interrupting output. More than 3.5 million laying hens were culled for bird flu in late 2024. All livestock markets were closed from 30 June 2025 after a new strain of foot-and-mouth disease, SAT-1, crossed into the south-east.[3, 2]
Resource headroom:
Water per person fell to 1,301 cubic metres in 2025, below the 1,700 level where water stress begins. The World Bank's broader measure was 2,671 cubic metres in 2022.[11, 12] The government's farm production plan is cutting maize by 10 per cent to 550,000 hectares in Central Anatolia and the Aegean, and dairy farmers in the west are growing sorghum instead of maize.[1, 2]
Between 2000 and 2024, arable land fell from 23.8 to 20.2 million hectares and cropland from 26.4 to 24.0 million. Per person, that is a fall of 35 and 30 per cent.[35, 37] About 85 per cent of maize goes to animal feed, and 80 per cent of wheat and barley relies on rain.[1, 4] Sunflower yields fell from 2.21 tonnes a hectare in 2023/24 to 1.58 in 2025/26, with losses above 50 per cent in Thrace.[1, 4] Turkey has 0.24 hectares of arable land per person.[13] The sea also limits growth. 52 per cent of the fish stocks assessed in the Mediterranean and Black Sea were overfished in 2023, and Turkey lands 31.4 per cent of the region's catch and produces 43 per cent of its farmed fish.[8, 10]
Irrigable land grew from 4.7 to 7.2 million hectares between 2000 and 2024.[35, 36] In the Southeastern Anatolia Project, 72 per cent of the planned irrigation works had been built by 2024, but water had reached only 675,250 hectares of the original 1.8 million hectare target. The 2024-28 target was cut to 1.1 million hectares.[39] Farm credit is strong. Bank lending to farming reached 689.1 billion lira in June 2024, about 6.5 per cent of all lending, against farming's 6.4 per cent share of the economy. The state-owned Ziraat Bank makes more than 70 per cent of farm loans.[34, 38, 40]
Pasture could produce much more. Turkey's 13.1 million hectares of pasture yield about 700 kg of hay a hectare, against 5.8 tonnes on European pasture. The agriculture ministry puts the gap down to how pasture is managed and who has rights to it.[2]
Import exposure:
Turkey imports very little meat, fish or dairy. It imports no chicken. Beef imports of 70,000 tonnes cover about 3.5 per cent of what people eat, and it exports more dairy, eggs and seafood than it imports.[3, 2, 9] The exposure is in bulk grain and meal, and there it relies almost entirely on one source. Russia supplied 3.86 million of the 4.11 million tonnes of wheat that arrived between June 2025 and January 2026, about 94 per cent. Ukraine and Russia together supplied about 95 per cent of maize from September to January. Russia supplied 883,000 of 983,000 tonnes of sunflower meal in 2024/25, close to 90 per cent.[1, 4] Turkey's grain comes almost entirely from one sea basin, around an active war.
Turkey controls the Turkish Straits rather than relying on them. It helped broker the Black Sea Grain Initiative, run from a joint centre in Istanbul. Turkey took about 3.2 million tonnes of Ukrainian farm goods for itself while the corridor moved 32.9 million tonnes in 1,004 voyages.[20] Ships can land on four coasts, and land routes stay open. Turkey's food routes are far harder to close than the Gulf's were in 2026.
Upstream dependence:
Feed makes up 65 to 75 per cent of what dairy and beef farms spend, and the agriculture ministry's own estimate is that 60 per cent of feed ingredients are imported.[2] Soybean imports are forecast at 4.55 million tonnes in 2026/27, plus 1.75 million tonnes of soybean meal. About half of the 2.1 million tonnes of sunflower meal used is imported. Maize imports of 5.7 million tonnes cover nearly half of the 12.0 million tonnes used. Turkey imported 1.25 million tonnes of wheat bran between June 2025 and January 2026, 880,000 tonnes of it from Russia.[5, 4, 1]
Fertiliser carries the same dependence, through riskier waters. Turkey imported about 2.5 million tonnes of urea worth US$1 billion in 2025. Cargoes declared as from Oman made up 38.1 per cent. Egypt supplied 617,600 tonnes, and Qatar and the UAE 5.4 per cent.[19] Much of the urea declared as Omani actually comes from Iran.[18] Either way, a large share of Turkey's nitrogen fertiliser passes through Hormuz. When the strait closed in early 2026, urea rose more than 30 per cent to US$647.50 a tonne. Ankara removed its 6.5 per cent import duty on urea on 7 March, banned urea exports and lifted its limits on ammonium nitrate.[19, 18, 1] Breeding stock is bought in too. Western Europe fills a 15 per cent gap in poultry breeding stock, and Turkey imports 450,000 to 460,000 cattle a year. It was the world's second largest importer of live animals in 2024, at US$788 million.[3, 2]
Turkey does control one vital livestock input. Its state foot-and-mouth institute made 6 million doses of vaccine against the new SAT-1 strain within weeks of it being found, and planned 2.6 million more by 20 July 2025.[2] Few countries can make animal vaccines at that scale. Turkey also processes its imported ingredients at home, in feed mills that can make 30.74 million tonnes a year.[1]
Access and affordability:
In 2024, 4.6 per cent of people , down from 12.9 per cent in 2021.[23] has stayed at 2.5 per cent, the lowest level FAO reports, since 2009. was 6.0 per cent in the 2018 national survey.[24, 25] Prices swing hard. Food inflation peaked at 102.55 per cent in November 2022 and was 37.53 per cent in July 2026.[21]
Turkey ranked 38th of 139 economies on the World Bank's 2023 logistics index.[26] Even so, the 2023 earthquakes hit more than a fifth of the country's food production, across eleven south-eastern provinces that produce 14.5 per cent of its farm output.[27] The area is home to most of the 2.25 million Syrians still registered under temporary protection in Turkey.[28] A survey of 103 refugee households in Istanbul found 90.3 per cent were food insecure.[29]
In Turkey, the falling lira drives food prices more than world prices do. A study of 2003-23 finds that up to 27 per cent of a currency fall reaches prices within three months, and puts about 90 per cent of food price rises down to causes at home.[41] Between 2021 and 2024, food prices in Turkey rose 383.0 per cent, against 259.8 per cent for world food prices in lira.[42, 43, 44] The lira fell from 8.850 to 32.806 to the dollar over that time, and to 39.455 by 2025.[43, 44, 45] From March 2022 to March 2026, Turkish food prices rose 403.6 per cent while world food prices fell 19.7 per cent.[42, 43] Meat prices rose 487.9 per cent between 2021 and 2025. Beef eaten per person fell from 22.89 kg in 2021 to 16.6 kg in 2024 as households switched to chicken and fish.[22, 3] In 2025, prices of chicken, white beans and wheat flour varied by 20.6, 27.3 and 26.1 per cent.[46] A day's pay at the 2026 net minimum wage of TRY 935.85 bought 8.2 kg of chicken or 13.2 kg of white beans at July prices.[46, 47]
Shock endurance:
Wheat stocks of 2.5 million tonnes in 2025/26 cover about two months of use, and are forecast to rise to 3.5 million tonnes. Maize stocks cover less than a month.[1] Traders keep stocks low because, with inflation high, holding money in financial assets pays better than holding grain.[1]
Turkey has come through shock after shock, from the 2023 earthquakes to the 2026 fertiliser crisis, without running short of protein. The state grain board, TMO, bought about a quarter of the wheat crop, imported barley to hold prices down and banned poultry exports for Ramadan 2026.[1] Reserves covered 4.73 months of imports in 2024, but borrowing is expensive. All three major rating agencies rate Turkey below investment grade.[30, 16, 31, 32] Its COVID-19 support came to 2.5 per cent of GDP and relied on tax deferrals and loans from state banks rather than cash payments.[33] Farming still employs 14.2 per cent of workers, so many households live close to where food is grown.[17] Turkey's high protein supply is a buffer, but thin stocks and limited public money hold it back.
Trajectory
The government's farm production plan moves land from maize and cotton to wheat and drought-tolerant crops in river basins short of water.[1] That could protect harvests as water gets scarcer, but growing less maize may mean importing more feed. Imports of live animals have not stopped the herd shrinking, and cattle numbers are forecast to fall again in 2026.[2]
Turkey can strengthen its position by producing more protein meal for feed, getting more out of its pasture and buying nitrogen fertiliser from more suppliers. A feed reserve would give farms more time to adjust when imports are late. These steps tackle different parts of the same problem. Turkey can produce most of its own protein, but the cost and supply of feed, fuel and fertiliser remain tied to the lira and to suppliers abroad.