Over 700,000 cattle were imported by Turkey in the first 11 months of 2023, according to figures from the Turkish State Institute of statistics.
The news comes as the country’s Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry has recently published import instructions and specifications for the importation of 600,000 head of male cattle for fattening in 2024.
The Turkish Meat and Milk Institution (ESK) will oversee the cattle imports while the sales price of the fattening cattle to be imported “will be determined by the Meat and Milk Institution”, according to an official document from the Turkish Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry.
The table below shows the number of cattle imported by Turkey (from each country) in the first 11 months of 2021, 2022 and 2023:
Country cattle were imported from 2021 2022 2023 Brazil 27,945 – 343,174 Uruguay 114,294 18,061 161,008 Czech Republic 28,999 15,029 45,695 Hungary 23,440 11,914 36,418 Germany 8,998 4,857 24,803 Romania 3,299 1,218 19,692 Denmark 2,244 2,418 17,994 Ireland 7,042 – 10,034 United States 4,279 1,727 9,578 Slovakia 5,141 3,534 9,036 Austria 2,192 3,035 8,225 Bulgaria 1,133 640 7,762 Latvia 2,564 2,147 6,954 Chile – – 5,106 Netherlands 225 101 3,701 Estonia 1,604 464 2,245 Italy 98 1,414 1,821 Poland – – 1,776 Lithuania 43 116 233 France 7,212 736 93 Syria – – 55 Spain 4,414 – – Belgium – 59 – Australia – 3,150 – Total: 245,166 70,620 715,403
The latest figures available only show data from January to November of 2023 and as the table above shows, the largest majority of cattle imported by Turkey in this time period of 2023, came from South America.
In January to November of 2023, Turkey imported over 343,000 cattle from Brazil and over 161,000 cattle from Uruguay indicating that over 500,000 cattle (504,182) were shipped from South America to Turkey in the first 11 months of 2023.
In this time period of 2023, Ireland exported over 10,000 cattle to Turkey.