Bilge Su Yıldırım
Domestic production of cotton, one of the country’s leading export products in the global market, is rapidly declining.
Capitalist policies that encourage imports, input costs that have risen rapidly alongside the economic crisis, purchase prices that are insufficient to cover expenses, drought caused by the climate crisis, and plundered agricultural land are driving farmers away from cotton production.
ONE FOURTH OF PRODUCTION EXPECTED TO DECLINE
The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry’s 2025 Second Crop Production Forecast data, announced the previous day, once again revealed the extent of the crisis in cotton production. Cotton was one of the products expected to see the greatest decline in production. It was reported that production in 2025 is expected to decrease by 13.7% compared to 2024. It is predicted that the total production of cotton in 2025 will decline to 1,935,000 tonnes, down from 2,243,000 tonnes in 2024. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) report, ‘Turkey Cotton and Cotton Products Update,’ estimated that the decline in production would be 19%. According to the forecast, the cotton cultivation area will decrease by 15% compared to last year, falling to 395,000 hectares, while production will decrease by 160,000 tonnes compared to last year, reaching 700,000 tonnes.
The gradual decrease in production areas over the years was another factor contributing to the decline in production. The rapid urbanisation of agricultural areas led to the destruction of cotton fields. According to the 2024 Cotton Report published by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry on 1 August, there was a 17% decrease in cotton cultivation areas across the country in the 2023/2024 season. This decrease particularly affected Çukurova, known as the “homeland of cotton”. Cotton cultivation areas across the country decreased from 573,161 hectares in the 2022/2023 season to 477,438 hectares in the 2023/2024 season. By the 2024-2025 season, production areas had fallen to 465,000 hectares.
SUBSIDIES GO TO MANUFACTURERS, NOT FARMERS
The decline in domestic production caused by capital-friendly policies that encourage imports has reached alarming levels. A USDA report estimates that Turkey’s cotton fibre production will be 700,000 tonnes and imports will be 825,000 tonnes in the 2025/2026 season. This figure is 12% lower than the cotton import estimate for the 2024/2025 season. According to TÜİK statistics, cotton imports in the country increased by 27% in the first 11 months of the 2023/2024 season compared to the same period of the previous season, reaching 874,831 tonnes.
80% OF FARMERS SAY “I WON’T SOW NEXT YEAR”
As production areas shrink due to urbanisation and state subsidies shift towards imports, cotton production has also been hit by the announced purchase prices. The Çukurova Cotton, Peanut and Oilseed Agricultural Sales Cooperative Union (Çukobirlik) set the purchase price for the 2025-2026 season at 31 TL per kilogram for 44% yield. Cotton farmers reacted to the price, saying that a price above 40 TL per kilogram was essential.
Agricultural engineer Abdullah Tutuş, who grows cotton in Urfa, assessed the crisis in production for BirGün. Saying that producers are being crushed by low purchase prices, Tutuş said: “The price per decare of cultivated land varies between 12,000 and 15,000 lira. When we deliver the harvested cotton to the factories, the average price we farmers receive is around 27,000 lira per tonne. When we sell the product to the factory, they also charge us for delivery, and we pay a delivery fee of around 4,000 lira per truck. The purchase price announced by Çukobirlik is very low. The cost of one acre of cotton to the farmer is around 44-45 lira, while the price announced by Çukobirlik is 31 lira. 80% of the farmers I work with as an agricultural engineer say they will not be able to sow cotton next year.”
Referring to how incentives for imports have virtually abandoned domestic production, Tutuş continued: “Every country uses its own products first, and only imports from abroad when there is a shortage. In our country, the process is reversed. We are importing cotton into the country before we even buy our own product. This cotton is brought in from countries like India and Bangladesh, where input costs are low, meaning manufacturers pay lower purchase prices. We are destroying our own production for the sake of manufacturers’ profits. Cotton production in Urfa has halved. This is a city that single-handedly meets 47% of the country’s cotton demand. Farmers work hard for six months to grow cotton and then live off the money they earn from the harvest for the next six months. How will these people survive when they don’t get any money? The country’s agricultural policy needs to be urgently reorganised. We are sinking day by day, and it is national capital that is being depleted.”
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• According to estimates by the International Cotton Advisory Committee (ICAC), cotton cultivation areas in the country will decline to 430,000 hectares,
• Production will fall to 780 thousand tonnes, while imports will approach 1 million tonnes.
• Cotton cultivation areas decreased by -27% in Çukurova,
• -16% in Southeast Anatolia,
• -10% in the Aegean region,
• and -20% in Antalya.
• Turkey ranks 7th in the world in cotton production and 4th in imports.
Note: This article is translated from the original article titled İthalat teşviki üretimi bitirecek, published in BirGün newspaper on October 26, 2025.
