Browse Data and Analysis

Turkey’s food sector is diverse and growing, despite COVID-19 and recent economic difficulties. COVID-19 prompted a health and wellness trend among many middle-class consumers, who are looking for healthier processed and packaged food products.

Turkey’s production of chicken meat in 2022 is projected higher, in large part because of anticipated strong export demand from neighboring countries and China.

In the last couple weeks, Turkey has imposed temporary export bans on select agricultural products to stabilize local market conditions and keep prices from running higher.

Fearing rising prices and the perceived threat of sunflower oil shortages, customers have scrambled in recent days to stock up on cooking oils.

Turkey’s production of major oilseeds – sunflowerseeds, cottonseeds, and soybeans – in MY 2022/23 is projected to rebound from the previous year as strong prices are expected to spur increased plantings.

On January 27, 2022, the Turkish government published a new regulation delegating specific authority for the decision to implement export bans on a list of agricultural commodities during 2022 to the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MinAF).

The Turkish government continues its efforts to rein in inflation, which was made worse in recent months by the steep depreciation of the Turkish Lira against the US dollar and drought-related grain production losses in MY 2021/22.

On January 27, 2022, the Turkish government published a regulation (2022/1) that granted the Turkish Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MinAF) the authority to restrict the export of twenty (20) agricultural products in order to decrease domestic food inflation.

On January 7, 2022, the Turkish Government published Biosafety Decisions on the import of genetically engineered (GE) soybean and corn events. The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MinAF) approved one new soybean event and one new corn event for feed and cancelled the approvals of two corn events which expired on 12/24/2021.

On January 3, 2022, Turkey announced the domestic producer price index (PPI) inflation in the second half of 2021 was 47.39 percent, therefore triggering an automatic increase in the fixed-amount Special Consumption Tax (SCT) for alcohol beverages, soft drinks, fruit juice, and tobacco products.

On December 31, 2021, Turkey announced a revised tariff list for a number of products. According to a Presidential Decree published in the Official Gazette, the import tariffs on wheat, corn, rye, barley, oats, chickpeas, and lentils, has been eliminated through December 31, 2022.

Turkey has a young population of 84 million people fueling consumption of consumer-oriented agricultural products. The country is in a Customs Union with the EU and is the 20th largest economy in the world and the 7th largest agricultural producer.