The World and Türkiye in 2025

Aydın Tiryaki (December 31, 2025)
(Gemini AI was used as a data compilation and writing assistant)

Abstract: The year 2025 has been a year of “divergence,” where global headline inflation began to be brought under control, yet volatility in food prices triggered humanitarian crises. This article analyzes Turkiye’s position among the countries with the highest inflation in the world, its global ranking in food prices, and the latest situation in “acute hunger” regions worldwide through data.

Introduction: Global Polarization in Inflation

The disinflation process that began at the end of 2024 resulted in many advanced economies approaching their 2% targets in 2025. However, this optimistic picture turned into structural resistance in a group of countries, including Turkiye. Data as of December 31, 2025, reveals a landscape where one half of the world has achieved “price stability” while the other remains trapped in a chronic cost-of-living spiral.

1. The World Inflation League and Turkiye’s Position

As of the end of 2025, Turkiye maintains its place among the top 10 countries with the highest inflation in the world.

• Global Ranking: Turkiye ranks within the top 5-7 countries globally with the highest inflation, alongside nations experiencing “hyperinflation” or “war economies” such as Argentina, Syria, Lebanon, Sudan, and Venezuela.
• G20 and OECD: Turkiye is one of the two countries with the highest inflation in the G20, along with Argentina. Within the OECD, it has not yielded its top position to anyone in 2025, with both food and headline inflation rates being outliers.

2. “Negative Divergence” in Food Inflation

More poignant than headline inflation figures is food inflation, which directly impacts lower-income groups.

• World Ranking: According to World Bank and FAO data, Turkiye ranks among the top 4 countries in the world in real food inflation (price increase adjusted for inflation). While the global food price index began a stabilization trend in 2025, the continued rise of food prices in Turkiye is an indicator of a “structural crisis.”
• TURKSTAT vs. ENAG: By the end of 2025, while TURKSTAT announced annual inflation at around 31%, the independent research group ENAG reported this rate at approximately 56%. This data gap confirms that the inflation felt—especially in kitchen expenses—is far above world standards.

3. Global Hunger and Crisis Zones

In 2025, some regions of the world saw the problem of “physical access to food” peak beyond mere inflation.

• Disaster Zones: Gaza and Sudan closed the year at “Catastrophic Hunger” (IPC Phase 5) levels. These regions witnessed a tragedy where food was not only expensive but also inaccessible.
• Climate and Production: Record temperatures in Brazil and Southeast Asia increased the prices of coffee, cocoa, and rice by 40% on global markets in 2025, triggering nutritional crises in low-income countries.

4. Structural Stalemate for Turkiye

The primary reasons for Turkiye’s food prices diverging from the rest of the world include the contraction in agricultural production, the exchange-rate-based increase in input costs such as diesel and fertilizer, and inefficiencies in the logistics chain. The year 2025 has gone down as the year when the gap from “field to table” widened the most.

Conclusion

The year 2025 marked the official end of the “cheap food” era globally, while in Turkiye, it was a year where food faced the risk of becoming a “luxury.” The greatest test for Turkiye in 2026 will be to escape this notorious place in the world inflation league and implement structural reforms by placing food security at the center of the national security strategy.

APPENDIX: THE INVISIBLE FACE OF FOOD INFLATION AND THE NEW NORMAL IN THE KITCHEN

While the inflation data and agricultural production capacity discussed in this article demonstrate technical figures, by 2025, they reveal the issue of “food security”—society’s most vulnerable point—in its rawest form. Certain “unofficial” realities that are not fully expressed in the technical language of official reports can be summarized as follows:

1. The Global Epidemic of “Shrinkflation” and “Skimpflation” In 2025, the rise in food prices globally was not only reflected on labels; “shrinkflation” (reducing product quantity) and “skimpflation” (lowering ingredient quality) became global standards. Consumers were forced to pay the same price for less and lower-quality food. This has been the primary driver of “nutritional poverty” and a hidden hunger crisis worldwide.

2. Climate Crisis and “Food Nationalism” Extreme weather events in 2025 disrupted global harvest forecasts. This initiated an era of “food nationalism,” where many countries restricted agricultural exports to protect their domestic markets. These disruptions in the global supply chain have been the primary external factor making price stability impossible in agricultural economies dependent on imported inputs, such as Türkiye.

3. Türkiye: The “Food Access” Test in an Agricultural Country Specifically for Türkiye, 2025 has been a year where the contradiction between agricultural potential and market prices reached its peak. The uncontrolled increase in input costs (diesel, fertilizer, seeds) forced small-scale producers away from farming, while the lack of oversight in the chain from field to table made food inflation chronic. For citizens, inflation is no longer just a percentage; it is a social scar measured by basic protein and fresh vegetables becoming a “luxury.”

4. Seed Sovereignty and Academic Meritocracy A permanent solution to the food crisis depends on preserving agricultural knowledge and meritocratic personnel, beyond the technological investments mentioned in the article. In 2025, setbacks in local seed breeding and sustainable agricultural policies once again proved how vital merit-based academic norms are within the agricultural bureaucracy. Any policy not based on knowledge and merit carries the long-term risk of losing food sovereignty.

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A Note on Methods and Tools: All observations, ideas, and solution proposals in this study are the author’s own. AI was utilized as an information source for researching and compiling relevant topics strictly based on the author’s inquiries, requests, and directions; additionally, it provided writing assistance during the drafting process. (The research-based compilation and English writing process of this text were supported by AI as a specialized assistant.)