Successive increases in input costs such as medicine, feed, water and electricity are putting pressure on milk producers. According to the National Milk Council’s (USK) recommended selling price for raw milk, a litre of raw milk is sold for 17.15 TL. According to the National Dairy Council’s regional cost table for raw milk per litre for December, the cost of milk is 15.60 TL. However, the price of milk per litre in supermarkets ranges between 30 and 40 TL. Producers who cannot make a profit are gradually moving away from livestock farming.
One of the latest examples of producers leaving livestock farming and milk production occurred in the Dazkırı district of Afyonkarahisar. Bülent Toker and his wife Sevgi Toker, who engaged in livestock farming and milk production as a family business, sold all 20 of their animals, including 10 dairy cows, after approximately 30 years in the industry. In recent months, Bülent and Sevgi Toker sold all their animals for 1.3 million Turkish Lira, took out a loan to purchase an apartment in the same district for 2 million Turkish Lira, and rented it out for 10,000 Turkish Lira per month. Thus, they gave up livestock farming and dairy production in exchange for a monthly rental income of 10,000 Turkish Lira.
“WE SOLD EVERYTHING AND TOOK OUT A LOAN”
Bülent Toker said, “We worked every day for about 30 years, but since it no longer made sense, we gave up dairy farming. When we gave it up, we sold all our animals, but after working every day for 30 years, we didn’t even have a house to show for it. We had to take out a loan to buy a house. Now we receive 10,000 TL in monthly rent from that house, while continuing to farm. We can barely make ends meet.”
Toker noted that when calculating the cost of feed, hay, and silage, the cost exceeds the litre price of raw milk in every way, saying, “We didn’t even factor in our own labour. If we were to factor in our own labour by working every day of the week, it would drive a person mad. Producers are constantly losing money per litre. The cows are eating each other. We sell one cow, buy hay and feed. When we sell one litre of milk, we can’t even buy 1.5 kilograms of feed. A cow needs to eat at least 9 kilograms of feed per day for us to get milk efficiently. Actually, the cost is over 15 TL.”
Sevgi Toker also stated the following: “We managed to survive all these years as small producers because we didn’t factor in labour costs. It’s been about three months since we stopped production, but if we were still producing, we would be producing an average of 3 tons of milk per month and earning approximately 5,000 TL. This is the reward for the constant effort of two people. One of the first things we were taught was that 1 litre of milk requires 4 kilograms of feed, but we are far from that now. Considering all this, we sold all our animals and took out a loan to buy an apartment. At least we’re not as tired as before.”
Note: This text has been translated from the original Turkish version titled “30 yıllık emeğimiz bir ev almaya yetmedi”, published in BirGün newspaper on June 9, 2025.