Özgür Özel Backs Manisa Grape Growers: “Three Years Ago, One Kilo of Grapes Bought Three Liters of Diesel”

In the Manisa village where he spent his childhood, Republican People’s Party leader Özgür Özel met grape growers facing a sharp squeeze between production costs and crop prices. He said Manisa accounts for 35% of Turkey’s grape production, but vineyards have declined by 25% over the past 20 years and output by 37%.

Özel said raisin prices, which stood near 120 lira last year, had fallen to 60-70 lira on the free market this year. At the same time, fertilizer, fuel and other production costs had risen between 60% and 90%. He said indebted farmers were being forced to sell their crops cheaply under the pressure of interest payments.

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Three years ago, selling one kilo of grapes bought three liters of diesel. Today, selling the same product cannot even buy one liter of diesel. While fertilizer and fuel prices and production costs have risen by between 60% and 90%, the product price falling by half is unacceptable. Farmers are forced to sell their produce cheaply under the burden of interest in order to pay their debts.

“Three years ago, selling one kilo of grapes bought three liters of diesel. Today, selling the same product cannot even buy one liter of diesel,” Özel said. He called the collapse in prices alongside rising costs unacceptable and urged the Turkish Grain Board to announce an appropriate purchase price that would regulate the market.

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There are guaranteed tolls for contractors, guaranteed patients for hospitals and guaranteed flights for airports, but there is no guarantee for the producer who works day and night. Under our government, we will establish a production system with guaranteed purchases and provide lifeline loans to farmers to secure the continuity of production.

Özel proposed a one-time cancellation of farmers’ interest payments and spreading principal debt over three years. He also said TARIS and similar producer cooperatives would regain a market-shaping role under a government led by his party. The proposed agricultural program would include guaranteed-purchase production and emergency loans to help farmers keep producing.

He put the issue in broader terms, saying food inflation had reached 35% and the average age of Turkish farmers had risen from 37 to 57. “A country’s biggest survival problem is food inflation and young people’s separation from the land,” he said, promising to address both through agricultural planning and policy.

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A country’s biggest survival problem is food inflation and young people’s separation from the land.