Current Status of Forage Crops Cultivation and Strategies for the Future in Turkey: A Review

Forage crops cultivation area in Turkey is 2.312 million ha in 2020. The rate of forage cultivation in the total agricultural area is 6.1%, and its rate in the field land is 12.3%. Lucerne, silage corn, oat, vetch, and sainfoin are main forage crops in Turkey. The amount of produced is 16.8 million tons of hay and 48.8 thousand tons of seeds. The forage crop cultivation areas have increased by 206% since the beginning of the 2000s due to the government subsidies. However, shortage of quality roughage is still a big problem for animal husbandry of the country. For this reason, new strategies should be developed to increase forage cultivation areas by considering global warming, drought, and climate change. In order to meet the need for roughage, it is necessary to expand the cultivation area of forage crops as winter catch crops and second crops. In addition, some of the fallow fields should be utilized by growing drought-resistant forage species. The fields abandoned due to different problems should be used for the cultivation of suitable forage crops.