Turkey's organic food exports up 17 percent in 2017

Turkey's organic food exports rose 17 percent year-on-year in 2017, the head of Aegean Dried Fruit Exporters' Association said Tuesday.

The country earned $87 million last year in revenue from organic food exports to 68 countries, Birol Celep said in a statement.

Celep said that the exports also rose by 10 percent on a weight basis compared to the previous year, hitting 21,000 tons.

"Turkey exports raisins, dried figs, nuts and dried apricots the most. The actual export volume of organic food is at least fivefold the amount on record," Celep said, adding the difference stemmed from improper filing of export declarations.

"The numbers appear lower since the products are not properly labelled as organic in export declarations," he said.

Celep added that the largest organic food importer from Turkey was Germany, followed by the U.S and France.