Turkey number 2 global exporter of eggs


Turkey produced 17 billion eggs in 2014, which is a record high for the country, and Turkey's exports accounted for 9 percent of the total egg exports in the world, making Turkey the second-biggest global egg exporter, according to Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) data. The dean of Uludağ University's Veterinary Medicine Faculty, Hüseyin Yıldız, said Turkey had earned $400 million from exporting eggs. Furthermore, 95 percent of the chicken meat produced has been undertaken by integrated firms. "With more than 17 billion eggs produced, the highest production figure until today, Turkey has earned $400 million from exports in this sector. Together with exports of chicken meat, produced by integrated firms, exceeding $300 million, Turkey has 4 percent of the global market share. The country is also expected to become a major player in this market as well," Yıldız said. Currently, a Turkish company owns the breeding facility with the highest capacity in Europe.

Last year, Turkey had 14.2 million head of cattle, 31.1 million sheep, 10.3 million goats and 130,000 horses. More than 1 million tons of red meat, 18.6 million tons of milk, 1.9 million tons of white meat, 17.1 million eggs and 103,500 tons of honey had been produced by the livestock industry in 2014. Yıldız said due to the increasing population and food demand, the quality of the edible animal stock needs to be increased. Also, more attention should be paid to diseases, epidemics, feed and breeding standards. "The increasing global feed prices also force the breeders to try to obtain more products out of the animal stocks in order to decrease the share of feed costs in the general breeding costs," Yıldız said.