Turkey: Pioneer in Good Taste

Victor Ananias’s idea has become reality. The founder of the environmental organisation “Bugday” (Wheat) (picture on right) has created Istanbul’s first organic market in the middle of the capital in the district called Sisli. “This is the breakthrough for organics in Turkey,” he beams. For weeks now the phones in the little office at the foot of the Galata Tower have not stopped ringing.  Right up to the last minute, they were doing the sums, checking the fine details of transport and negotiating with the authorities and farmers. In the middle of June 2006 the signal was given to start the biggest project that “Bugday” has ever mounted: chemical-free potatoes, apples, cucumbers, lettuce and spinach are being brought in from the surrounding countryside.

Picture: Victor Ananias and his team

The “Ekolojikpazar” is open every Saturday from 8.00 to 19.00. In just a few weeks the market has grown from 50 to 85 stalls, and the number is still increasing. Everything on sale is 100 % certified organic.  Each week 2500 - 3000 people visit the market, whose location was made available by the city authorities. This weekly organic market strives for low consumer prices that are in fact scarcely 20 % higher than for conventional goods. As well as offering fresh fruit and vegetables, the organic market wants to attract customers with its appealing facilities: a children’s play area, Bugday information stand, events like open discussions, and live music. Other districts in Istanbul have already expressed  interest in setting up further organic markets.

For a long time, Victor Ananias has been working towards this minor revolution. The organisational work to create all this at Bugday alone took three years. It is sixteen years since Mr Ananias began with an organic stall in Bodrum in south west Turkey. A few years and many odd jobs later, this son of Turkish and Chilean parents opened a restaurant that served its clientele with organic ingredients. He spent the winter months getting to know the cuisine of other countries. When he returned from his many journeys, including to Germany, he realised that he was a man who enjoyed the simple life, one who does not eat animal products and who is guided not by what can be done but by what needs to be done. He is someone who wants to convince people of the merits of an ecological way of life and who practises what he preaches.

In the meantime, the “Initiative for Organic Lifestyle” occupies a prominent place in the Turkish eco-scene, a network of environmental initiatives, organic farmers and wholefood shops. A dozen employees give advice to firms, shopkeepers and farmers wanting to convert to organic. It publishes a magazine on the environment and promotes projects like the “City Garden”. Less than an hour from the city centre, Victor and his fellow campaigners have recently been growing organic fruit and vegetables. A supporter let them have the plot of land. Every week during the harvest period, the roughly 150 families who help to finance the garden project  receive a box of organic produce. Already the garden project is being imitated in other Turkish towns.

“Everybody moans that food doesn’t taste of anything any more,” says Victor, who is not in the least surprised, considering the methods of industrialised agriculture. Everywhere, poisonous agricultural substances are being applied indiscriminately, with no attention being paid to safe limits or food controls. For this reason, fruit and vegetables from the Mediterranean region - especially grapes and paprika from Turkey - are regularly shown by Greenpeace tests to be very heavily polluted by pesticides. To tackle the root cause, Victor keeps on travelling out into the countryside to where he himself grew up, inviting farmers and their wives to tea houses and explaining to them how conventional agriculture depletes the soil, how toxic agricultural chemicals end up in the drinking water and how people’s health can be damaged.

One of the few people who understands all of this is Gürsel Tongul, a pioneer in organic agriculture in Turkey. The 53 year old Mrs Tongul exhibited dried fruit, nuts, olive oil and wine at the 5th National Organic Trade Fair in Istanbul, a meeting point for around 60 exhibitors who make up the still relatively straightforward scene. She acquired her knowledge by sheer hard work. “There was nobody to help me,” says the resolute Gürsel Tongul, who could afford to convert her large farm to the south of Izmir to organic only because her main source of income comes from tourism. Even today, there is hardly any support from the State for prospective organic farmers. “I warn the farmers about the consequences for the environment, but most of them just say they have to look after their children and are not prepared to take the risk.” Then this tourist operator recounts the story of farmers in Central America who were so desperate that they cleared the trees from the slope above their village. Heavy rain then caused a landslide that buried a lot of children.

Victor is well aware that many people in his country suffer deprivation. His best remedy for pessimism is to push some new ideas, such as the free newspaper that he wants to publish for farmers to convince them that they are not behind the times if they do not use chemicals, that they should keep old traditions like exchanging seed and that they should not allow themselves to be persuaded to buy high-tech seed that they will have to go on buying year after year.

To recharge his energy, the 35 year old Victor likes to take his little son Ali and leave the noisy, hectic capital behind. As often as he can, this eco-activist digs in the City Garden, plants seedlings, does work on the greenhouse or feeds the draught oxen. Of course, what for Victor is a nice day out is for many of his compatriots everyday routine: around a third of all employed people earn their money in agriculture. About 20 % of farmers have always farmed chemical free - the ‘green revolution’ has not reached the remote agricultural regions. People who live from hand to mouth cannot afford expensive machinery or sprays. At the moment, around 12,500 mostly small farmers are certified organic, and they cultivate an area of 300,000 ha (1 % of the total agricultural land). Most of the harvest that brings in an estimated 40 million Euros is exported, including to Germany (see box). In Turkey itself, healthy food is too expensive for the majority of people, and in any case fresh fruit and vegetables are hard to find in the few existing organic shops.

It is precisely this situation that the new organic market is intended to change. The price of fresh organic food is roughly 20 % higher than for conventional food, and this means it is affordable for many people living in the city, including those in the poorer districts.

The head of Bugday is convinced that if demand grows production will be stimulated as a result. At the same time, the farmers would see that through organic agriculture they have future prospects. Their traditions and accumulated knowledge would prove their worth, and flight from the land would be halted. Although it was able to feed itself until 1980, Turkey has now been importing food for a long time on account of people abandoning agriculture. The number of farmers would decline drastically again if Turkey joined the EU.

So the organic revolution has to succeed before then. “The weekly market will get organics started”, says Victor optimistically, and he explains that there is growing opposition to gene technology. He enthuses about the wealth of species and the fertility of the soil: “In our country absolutely everything grows.” He points to the still largely unexploited potential in the east of the country which, from his point of view, is a benefit for the whole of Europe. “If demand in your part of the world keeps on growing, where will you get your organic products from in future if not from us?” he asks with a beaming smile.

More information is available at:

www.bugday.org (English)
www.rapunzel.de

This article was kindly made available to us by German Greenpeace Magazine. Greenpeace Magazine appears six times a year and a subscription costs 24.50 Euros.  As well as containing a wide range of topics from science and politics it deals with environmental issues and addresses in particular health, human rights and alternative ways of living. The magazine finances itself wholly from sales and does not receive any financial support from Greenpeace. www.greenpeace-magazine.de