Turkish agricultural sector grows steadily, minister says

ISTANBUL

The Turkish agriculture sector’s annual average growth rate is much higher than its OECD and EU peers, with 2.7 percent in the last 10 years, the treasury and finance minister has said.

“Our agricultural export figure has increased to $19.4 billion from $3.7 billion in 2002. Red meat production has increased from 366,658 tons to 1,201,469 tons,” Berat Albayrak said in a tweet on Sept. 17.

“Our yearly growth rate of 2.7 in the agricultural sector is well ahead of the OECD and EU countries,” he added.

Albayrak also shared a video comparing the developments in Turkey’s agricultural sector in the last 10 years.

The video shows that the average agricultural growth rates among the OECD and EU countries are 1.3 percent and 0.5 percent, respectively.

In the last 17 years, white meat production has also increased from 905,220 tons to nearly 2.2 million tons, according to the video.

The total number of tractors used in Turkey was up by 350,000, hitting 1.35 million in the same period.

As a self-sufficient country in agriculture and food, Turkey exports 1,827 different agricultural products to 193 countries.

The total export amount of agricultural exports in a year is around $18 billion.