Bananas, once seen in Türkiye as a specialty crop grown only in small pockets along the Mediterranean coast, are today enjoying a remarkable expansion, thanks largely to greenhouse farming. Nowhere is this transformation more visible than in Antalya's Manavgat district, where the harvest season has begun in vast stretches of newly built greenhouses.
For decades, banana cultivation in Türkiye was limited to open fields in Mersin's Anamur and Bozyazı and Antalya's Alanya and Gazipaşa. These coastal towns with subtropical microclimates were virtually the only places where the fruit could thrive.
But since 2015, government incentives — ranging from agricultural loans to grants — have shifted production toward "örtü altı" (covered) farming. As a result, banana yields nearly quadrupled within a decade, climbing from 210,000-270,000 tons annually before 2015 to a record 997,000 tons in 2022.
Although production dipped slightly in 2023 and 2024, the shift to greenhouse cultivation has reshaped the map of banana farming. Manavgat alone now hosts more than 20,000 acres of greenhouse land, a number rapidly approaching 25,000.
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