Changes in the Livestock sector in Turkey

The livestock sector plays an important role in the balanced nutrition of the rapidly increasing population

by meeting the needs of high biological value foods such as meat, milk and eggs. In addition, it creates

employment areas for many sectors such as production of animal feed, meat-milk products, veterinary

drugs, livestock equipment, leather and textile industries and provides income to the country's economy.

Considering the natural resources and ecological conditions that Turkey has, the livestock sector has an

important place in agricultural production. In recent years, there has been a significant increase in the

number of large and small ruminants. The number of cattle, which was 10.7 million heads in 2000, have

increased over the years and reached 17.9 million heads in 2020. The number of water buffalo, which

was 84.7 thousand in 2010, increased 2.3-fold in 2020 and reached 192.8 thousand heads. In small

ruminants, the presence of sheep has increased by 82% in the last 10 years, reaching 42.1 million heads,

and the presence of goats has reached approximately 12 million heads with an increase of 90%. In the

poultry sector, the number of modern coop and integrated facilities has increased, and there has been an

increase in egg and poultry meat production. Over the past decade, chicken meat production has

increased 1.5-fold, turkey meat production has increased 1.9-fold and egg production has increased 1.7-

fold. Despite the increase in the animal presence in Turkey, animal based protein consumption is

significantly low (37.9 g/capita/day). With the solution of existing problems in the livestock sector, both

the amount of animal production and the per capita consumption of animal based protein will increase.