The Mersin Chamber of Agriculture Chairman Cengiz Gokcel: “The peppers are sold at 0.40 USD per kg and this is the period when pepper production, and all the other greenhouse vegetables, peak. However the prices are too low for the growers and the growers are suffering because of it. Even though the quality and quantity of the production has increased over the years, we have been struggling to find the desired prices for our products in the marketplace. Not only pepper growers but also other growers are suffering. They had received credits from state banks and when they could not pay off these credits, they had to borrow money from private banks to pay them off. Now all growers are saddled with bank payments in the area.
Right now this is the best harvest time for pepper and the growers can only sell their products at 0.40 USD to middlemen but the pepper prices at retail vary between 1.25 to 2.5 USD. This is very disappointing for us. We should be getting more than 0.40 USD for our efforts especially when you consider how costly greenhouse production is. We want to ask for help from our government to guide us to new markets locally and internationally where we can get favourable prices for our products which will make our growers economically viable in the long term. Otherwise we are afraid that more growers will slowly start leaving their businesses.”
Source: Yeni Mesaj