Determination of Türkiye's ovine breeding potential: Making a price projection

Turkey has a suitable environment and potential for all kinds of livestock activities in terms of its geographical characteristics. Small cattle breeding has an important place among these activities. While there were 40.54 million heads of sheep in Turkey in 1975, this amount decreased to 21.79 million by the 2010s. After this date, with the increasing support and the importance of animal husbandry, the sheep population was 44.69 million in 2022, while the number of goats was 11.58 million and the total number of ovines was 56.27 million. In order to make production-oriented planning, production potential and prices must be estimated. For this purpose, an estimate was made for the red meat market within the scope of the study. In the estimations of the amount of red meat production (2000-2021), 21-year time series data were used and estimates were made with the double exponential correction method. Normality test was applied for the specified time series (Kolmogorow Smirnow) and it was determined that the data set had a normal distribution. While the rate of sheep meat in the total red meat production amount was 19% in 2021, it is expected to increase to 22% in 2025. A time series of 19 years (2003-2021) was examined in the estimation of animal existence. Regarding the numbers of cattle, sheep and goats, 5-year (2022-2026) estimates were made by applying the double exponential correction method to the time series of cattle, sheep and goat numbers. It is predicted that the total number of animals, which was 72 million in 2020, will increase to 94 million in 2025. In 2020, 75% of the total livestock assets are small cattle and 25% are bovine animals. In the evaluation made, the amount of red meat consumption per capita in Turkey was realized as 17.3 kg in 2020 and it was calculated that it would increase to 17.6 kg by 2025. In addition, in the estimation made on carcass red meat prices, it is estimated that the price of carcass red meat, which was 77 TL in 2020, will continue its upward trend until 2023, increasing to around 180 TL and decreasing to 147.4 TL in 2025.