Milk production rises in March

ANKARA

The amount of cow’s milk collected by dairy companies increased by 6.2 percent in March compared with the same month of last year to 912,000 tons, according to data from the Turkish Statistics Institute (TÜİK).

Drinking milk output rose nearly 11 percent year-on-year to 139,000 tons, while yogurt production was up 2.9 percent from March 2022 to around 99,000 tons.

Some 67,000 tons of cheese were produced from cow’s milk, which pointed to a 3.4 increase from a year ago. Ayran - a local drink made of yogurt - production, however, declined by 2.9 percent to 61,630 tons.

Türkiye’s butter production plunged more than 28 percent to a little over 8,000 tons.

TÜİK, on May 11, separately unveiled data for poultry production. According to the latest figures, chicken meat production was nearly 200,000 tons in March, marking a 1.5 percent decline on an annual basis.

In the first quarter, chicken meat production stood at 568,000 tons, down 2.5 percent from the January-March period of 2022.

Some 109,000 chickens were slaughtered in the month, down 6.5 percent compared with March last year. Turkey meat production also fell by 7.3 percent to 4,300 tons.

Egg production exhibited an annual increase of 7 percent to 1.73 billion.