Turkey may produce significantly less wheat next year after surging fertilizer prices pushed the country’s farmers to cut their fertilizer use and grow other crops, according to a Bloomberg report this week, citing Turkey’s Dünya newspaper.
Many growers are switching to lentils or chickpeas, as these crops require less fertilizer than wheat, the newspaper reported, citing farmers and agricultural organizations.
Turkey typically plants its winter-wheat crop in October and November. In the country’s Diyarbakir and Mardin provinces, fertilizer use has been cut by as much as half following a more than five-fold rise in prices over the past year, Dünya reported.
Wheat production is expected to fall by 14 percent to 17.7 million mt this year, according to an October estimate by the Turkish Statistical Institute, cited by the report.