Functional assessment of TÜRKVET: animal identification, movement control and veterinary traceability in Türkiye.

Abstract

National veterinary information systems are central to animal identification, movement control and official veterinary action, but their operational scope and system boundaries are often described imprecisely. This Short Communication assessed TÜRKVET using current Turkish legislation, official reports dated 24 July 2026 and an authorised examination of the live interface. TÜRKVET operates as a centrally governed national platform across all 81 provinces and integrates holding and actor registration, identifier governance, animal lifecycle records, movement certification and official-control functions. Official reports recorded 1,433,562 active holdings, 18,556,047 cattle and buffalo, and 64,231,597 sheep and goats. Its most comprehensive identification and lifecycle functions apply to cattle, buffalo, sheep and goats; dedicated equid functions are present; camels and other categories are represented through tracking, movement or certification workflows; and poultry and companion-animal identification are managed in complementary external systems. The authorised interface confirmed that identification, movement and official-control functions coexist within one national operational environment. However, public evidence on completeness, timeliness, duplicate resolution, trace-back performance and system availability remains limited. Future evaluation should therefore use explicit performance indicators rather than infer effectiveness from functional breadth or national scale alone.