The short message caused great panic among the Turkish population. President of the Union of Vegetable Oil Producers Tahir Buyukhelvajigil said in an interview that 16 tankers loaded with sunflower oil have been waiting in vain for several days to leave Russian ports on the Sea of Azov, while Turkey has only one month’s worth of sunflower oil.
Turks consume 2.7 million tons of sunflower oil per year
As a result, people began to panic buying oil in stores. Many videos on the Internet show completely empty shelves and long queues in front of store warehouses. In one of these videos, an elderly man shows two five-liter tubes of sunflower oil in front of the camera, proudly holding them like a winner.
In addition, sunflower oil in Turkey is not at all cheap, in just a year its price has doubled. Last year, 1 liter cost 19 pounds, and now 40 pounds – i.e. about 2.50 euros. This is an unspeakable price for a country where more than 10 million workers earn minimum wages and nearly 3.5 million work for even less. The minimum monthly salary in Turkey is currently 312.50 euros (as of March 10 and 22).
According to the Turkish Ministry of Agriculture, the country is the world’s largest importer of sunflower oil. Turkey imports about 65% of its demand from Russia and just over 4% from Ukraine. Turkey then resells some of these imports to Algeria and Iraq.
Turkey itself consumes 2.7 million tons of sunflower oil per year, while its own production produces only 1.7 million tons. Many farmers in recent years prefer to sow wheat and rapeseed, as this brings higher profits. The Bosphorus country imports not only 70% of its sunflower oil from Russia and Ukraine, but also 70% of the wheat it needs from Russia. Therefore, the war in Ukraine raised huge concerns about food shortages in Turkey.
However, the fear of inflation is even greater. Because she is growing fast. In food, it was 54.4% in February compared to 48% just a month earlier. Turkey continues to suffer from President Erdogan’s low interest rate policy. Two years ago, a pandemic came, and now there is a war in Ukraine. Price drops are not expected in the near future.
Experts call for reducing the country’s dependence on food imports, especially butter and wheat. They call on the state to stimulate local production. The current difficulties are, of course, the result of the war in Ukraine, but Turkey faces the same problems in every crisis as it did during the pandemic. That’s why Tefvik Bitzer, a grain board member of the Istanbul Chamber of Commerce, is pushing for more local production to protect Turkey from similar crises in the future.
The situation with sunflower oil is serious
Even the statement of the new Minister of Agriculture that the country has enough stocks of sunflower oil in warehouses did not calm the citizens. Ankara continues intensive closed-door talks with Moscow so that oil tankers can leave Russian ports and head for Turkey. On Wednesday night (March 9 and 22), the Turkish Ministry of Transport finally announced that four tankers left the ports of Yeysk and Rostov and would arrive in Turkey in the middle of next week. The news spread like wildfire. It also showed how serious the situation is at the Bosporus.