Turkey rocked by farmers’ protests

At the same time, Turkish farmers are being strangled by agro-industry traders who are forcing them to sell ever cheaper, even cheaper than last year. The case of tomato producers in Konya in the southeast is emblematic, Turkey is one of the main producers and exporters. The production cost is 10 pounds per kilo, or about 30 euro cents. But traders are only offering 1.60 pounds, even though they were buying it for 3.5 pounds in 2023. In Thrace in the west, a melon producer explains that traders are offering him 1 pound per kilo to resell them 20 times more expensive. He will let them rot in his field. From all over the country, farmers are complaining about their planned death, and they are angry with the state and the Minister of Agriculture, whose resignation they are demanding.

The state does not support them, this is the heart of the crisis, according to Turkish farmers. No aid, but also a feeling of abandonment. They are alone facing agro-industries, due to the lack of a floor price. There is no planning in agricultural policy. They are also alone facing the cooperatives whose greed they denounce. They only buy their crops if they acquire their seeds at prohibitive prices, they refuse payment terms, everyone gets into debt. Interest rates, even usury, are soaring. More and more farmers are selling their cars, their houses or their tractors to repay their credit and take out a new one in the process. It is a never-ending spiral. They are also alone facing the banks, which seize the land to sell it at auction. Between a quarter and a third of the land is mortgaged in the regions of Manisa or Aydin in the West, bankruptcies are multiplying. This is worrying when we know that the sector employs around 18% of the working population.