Turkey was once a self-sufficient country in terms of food and generated major revenue from the export of food items. In recent years, however, it has become an importer in the realm of agriculture as a result of decreased state support for farmers and stockbreeders and the privatization of state-owned meat and dairy enterprises under the Justice and Development Party (AKP).

The shrinking output of meat, in particular, has sent prices skyrocketing, meaning that meat is now a luxury product beyond the reach of many low-income households. The importation of meat and livestock has failed to remedy the situation, and the crisis is growing even bigger amid the worsening conflict in Turkey’s Kurdish-majority eastern and southeastern regions, the traditional leaders of the husbandry and stockbreeding sectors.

According to Ozden Gungor, head of the Turkish Agricultural Engineers Chamber, state support for agriculture and husbandry over the past 12 years amounted to only 70 billion Turkish liras ($25 billion), while imports of agricultural and animal products and other food items were worth 320 billion Turkish liras ($137 billion).

In the husbandry sector, the eastern and southeastern provinces account for 46.3% of Turkey’s sheep, 36.8% of goats and 28.4% of cattle, according to Semsi Bayraktar, chairman of the Turkish Agricultural Chambers Union. However, the region has seen thousands of people migrate due to the worsening security situation, marked by heightened violence and terrorist attacks by Kurdish militants and heavy-handed military operations against them. Some 100,000 farmers and stockbreeders left their villages, fields and pastures in the two months after unrest flared up in the southeast in July 2015, moving to urban areas or other safer places. Taking livestock to pasture became virtually impossible as many rural regions were declared “security zones” off-limits to civilians and lengthy round-the-clock curfews were imposed on residential areas. Thousands of farmers were forced to sell their livestock and quit husbandry, bringing stockbreeding in the region almost to a halt and further widening the shortage in meat production.