Breedexpo2 visit to Turkey

From January 29 to February 2, we went to Turkey as part of the Breedexpo2 project to get to know the livestock industry of this country. Turkey is an important market for our cattle breeders, last year 2329 cattle were exported from Latvia to Turkey. During the visit, we visited 2 dairy farms and the international agricultural exhibition “AgroExpo” in Izmir. In Turkey, we were welcomed by representatives of the company “Alltech”, who introduced us to the situation in livestock farming and their activities in the Turkish market.

The first farm we visit started livestock farming 4 years ago, and 1,040 dairy cattle are raised here, of which 440 are dairy cows, and they manage 300 hectares of land. The cows are milked with 10 milking robots. There are 3 breeds of cows in the herd – 'Holstein', 'Swiss Brown' and 'Simmental'. Each breed has its own positive qualities, so the owners cannot yet say whether they will abandon any breed in the future.

The second dairy farm, “Gursut”, belongs to a dairy company that produces cheese and milk powder. This company has 2 dairy plants that purchase 500 tons of milk from regional dairy producers every day. The farm has 300 Jersey cows, which are milked by 4 robots, which are specially adapted for this breed. Heifers of this breed were also imported from the USA 3 years ago on this farm.

We devoted one day to visiting the “AgroExpo” exhibition in Izmir. This is the largest agricultural exhibition in Turkey. The exhibition takes place in 15 halls with a total area of 110 thousand square meters. All sectors, both domestic and foreign companies, were represented at the exhibition. This year, the emphasis was more on agricultural machinery, soil cultivation, but there were also representatives of the livestock industry, cattle and cattle genetics traders. We managed to meet and talk with European cattle traders who have not yet mastered the Latvian market.