Abdullah Özdemir, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Mersin Commodity Exchange and Chair of the Turkish National Pulses Council, said that in the last 35 years, while the cultivated areas of pulses have soared by 38 percent in the world, pulses production has soared by 70 percent.
“In the same period, the cultivated areas of pulses in Türkiye decreased by 55 percent to 9 million hectares and the production decreased by half to 1.3 million tonnes,” Özdemir said.
Stating that Türkiye produced 1 million 308 thousand tonnes of pulses in 2023 according to the data of Turkish Statistical Institute (TURKSTAT), Abdullah Özdemir noted that 44 percent of this was chickpeas, 32 percent was red lentils, 18 percent was dried beans and the remaining 6 percent was green lentils and other legumes such as broad beans.
“According to the statistics of the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, our country ranks 3rd in the world chickpea production and 4th in red lentils. We also rank 3rd in red lentil exports and 5th in chickpea exports,” Özdemir added…