CHP Samsun Deputy Murat Çan Expressed the Problems of Hazelnut Producers

MEHMET REBI OZDEMIR

(SAMSUN) – CHP Samsun Deputy Murat Çan, regarding the problems of hazelnut producers, said, “This product, which has many output costs from collection to fertilizer, medicine, thresher, cleaning of the garden and labor, is sold for 120 liras these days. The government has still not said anything. Our party, our general chairman has been bringing up the hazelnut issue for months. Maybe a rally will be held in this region.”

CHP Samsun Deputy Çan listened to the demands and problems of hazelnut producers in the Akçaykaracalı Neighborhood of the Terme district of Samsun. Hazelnut producers stated that they suffered losses due to the price given by TMO last year and requested that the hazelnut price not be below 160 liras this year. Murat Çan, who listened to the problems of the producers, said the following:

“The biggest supplier of the world’s hazelnut trade is Turkey. We are in the Terme district of Samsun province. Samsun province is the second most densely populated place in Turkey for hazelnut production. About two months ago, we informed the Parliament about the brown skunk in our hazelnut product, which can be processed industrially and has a very high added value. We said take precautions about this. However, no precautions were taken. The state and government pushed each garden owner to take precautions individually. As a result, two of these three hazelnuts that we collected from a branch today contain brown skunk larvae. Brown skunks are still wandering around on the branches of the trees. This is a problem. Another problem is that about a week ago, due to the very extreme wind and the rain that followed, and the flood disaster, producers estimate that the yield and product output will be much lower than the expected yield for hazelnuts.”

“The yield will be far behind the expected yield”

Çan emphasized that the yield would be far below the expected yield and continued his words as follows:

“This product, which has many output costs from collection to fertilizer, medicine, thresher, garden cleaning and labor, is sold for 120 liras these days. The government still hasn’t spoken out. Our party, our Chairman has been bringing up the hazelnut issue for months. Maybe a rally will be held in this region and we are making statements insistently asking for the victimization of hazelnut producers, the cost of this product of which we are the number one supplier in the world, and for a price to be given accordingly. At this point, we see that the revenue will be much lower than the expected yield, the product revenue. Our producer and our country are not getting their due share from this export. Hazelnuts were sold on the branch for 70, 80 liras last year. After that, it was marketed to foreign countries for much more than that. However, the producer has not benefited from this in any way. Let this year be that year and hopefully, let this year be a year when the producer will get his rights in a way that will eliminate his victimization.”

“The situation of the villagers is seriously difficult”

Former headman of Akçaykaracalı Neighborhood and hazelnut producer Çetin Kaya also said the following:

“The situation of the villagers is seriously difficult. They get everything from here. If they are not going to get anything out of it, they shouldn’t have to go through all this trouble for a year. Last year, I got 53% yield of hazelnuts. I gave them to TMO. I lost a lot. I bought them for 87 liras but they only got 53% yield. My hazelnuts were gone. I lost a lot. How was I going to pay my debt with that, how am I going to pay it?”

Another hazelnut producer said, “We work in the garden and vineyard, we work hard. Production is not enough. We hire daily workers, it is very expensive. What we collect is not worth the trouble. We have the expense of threshers, medicine, cleaning, fertilizer. Fertilizer is applied three times. We want TMO to give us a good price. We want it not to be less than 160 liras. In other words, we want a raise, we want to be rewarded for our labor according to our trouble.”