Ali Ekber Yıldırım

Increasing prices in the animal food market have started to alarm due to inflation and pandemic. Drawing attention to the continuous increase in input prices, experts agree that the only remedy for feed, which is the most important expense item in animal production, is the localization efforts.

Food nationalization has started to be talked about more in the world on the coronavirus pandemic. Many countries, which put the issue of foreign dependency on the table after the supply chains were interrupted, started to focus more on self-sufficiency especially in staple food. For example, Russia, which launched the Food Safety Doctrine in June, is planning to increase its self-sufficiency up to 75% in main crops in a short period of time and to decrease the level of foreign dependency in feed additives. In this context, the experts in Turkey are noting that rising prices are

largely due to the imported products depending on foreign exchange increases and similar reasons. According Duygu Erdoğan's news published on Milliyet daily, managers of the important institutions of the sector and Turkish agricultural experts point out that the country can gradually reduce the dependence on feed only through a special plan. Stating that feed became a burden for producers due to imported inputs, agricultural author Ali Ekber Yıldırım said, “More than 3 million tons of soy is needed for feed per year. Our production is 150 thousand tons in maximum. This deficit will not be able to met for a long time. We have to look at alternative products.” Bülent Tunç, President of The Red Meat Producers' Association of Turkey said they are preparing a study to find solutions to the problem of foreign dependence in feed and said that they submitted it to the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry.