Diverging Paths in Global and Turkish Wheat Production
· Namık Altan ATABAY
Data from the last fifteen years indicates that global wheat cultivation and Turkey's wheat farming are following increasingly divergent paths. While cultivated areas for wheat have remained stable globally, fluctuating between 220-226 million hectares, the situation in Turkey is almost the reverse. The planted area has declined from 8.1 million hectares to 6.6 million hectares in 2022, with only
Data from the last fifteen years indicates that global wheat cultivation and Turkey's wheat farming are following increasingly divergent paths. While cultivated areas for wheat have remained stable globally, fluctuating between 220-226 million hectares, the situation in Turkey is almost the reverse. The planted area has declined from 8.1 million hectares to 6.6 million hectares in 2022, with only a partial recovery to 7.1 million hectares anticipated by 2025. The loss of approximately 1 million hectares over fifteen years clearly demonstrates a systematic shrinking of the production base for a strategic agricultural product in the country.
Meanwhile, there has been an increase in yield per unit area, but whether this increase stems from success or necessity will become clearer as we observe harvests in the coming years. For now, my understanding is that the rise in yield per decare in Turkey, from 270 kg to 312 kg in 2024, is a defensive response attempting to compensate for the production loss caused by the shrinking land area. The use of certified seeds and modern inputs is only just filling the gap left by the lost acreage. Indeed, Turkey's production, which reached 21.8 million tons in 2011, has only managed to approach that level again in 2025, with significant years of decline in between, such as 2021 (17.7 million tons) and 2024 (17.9 million tons). The heavy reliance of production on climate, particularly drought, indicates that structural problems such as irrigation infrastructure and land consolidation persist.
A staple crop like wheat, originating from Anatolia, faces an import-export paradox in Turkey. Although statistics show Turkey as the largest agricultural producer and having the highest agricultural output in Europe, we import increasing amounts of raw wheat almost every year. Looking at the statistics again, wheat imports rose from 4.7 million tons in 2011 to 11.7 million tons in 2023. While this situation is explained by officials through the inward processing regime, citing increased pasta and flour exports, how stable and sustainable is it to bring thousands of tons of wheat from Russia and Ukraine, countries engaged in conflict, to Anatolian lands? However, with proper planning, if the 1 million hectares of lost wheat fields were regained, this import would not be necessary.
Generally, the decrease in wheat cultivated areas indicates that policies regarding floor prices, land use planning, and support mechanisms have unfortunately not been entirely successful in retaining farmers in wheat production. During the 2018-2022 period, when the loss of land was most severe, the failure to adequately reflect increases in input costs (fertilizer, diesel, seeds) in producer prices appears to have driven farmers towards non-agricultural land use. Furthermore, the decreasing share of public seeds in certified seed production points to insufficient targeting of public R&D investments, irrigation investments, and agricultural support. The partial recovery in 2025 data, with slight increases in area and yield, and a decrease in imports, raises questions: is this a positive signal from recently implemented policies like product planning and contract farming, a result of farmers' common sense, or simply farmers choosing to plant wheat due to its guaranteed sales, abandoning other crops? It is not yet clear.
In conclusion, Turkey appears to be moving further away from its goal of self-sufficiency in wheat, narrowing its production base instead of expanding it, contrary to global wheat farming trends. For sustainable food security, a structural reform is clearly needed, combining land consolidation, irrigation investments, yield-oriented R&D support, and a stable price policy that protects producers, rather than the current approach relying on short-term import convenience. Otherwise, Turkey's dependence on foreign sources for a strategic grain product seems set to increase year by year.