Women collective gets support from FAO for local food products

A woman collective in the eastern Black Sea province of Giresun has taken support from the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to produce hazelnut products, jam and cornflour using heirloom seeds.

The cooperative initiative founded by eight cousins is named Ortakbahçe, which means common orchard in Turkish.

"It is very valuable for us to take part in the agricultural practices works organized jointly by Bahçeşehir University and the FAO," Hale Çerkezoğlu Altundaş, a co-founder of the collective, told Hürriyet Daily News.

"Now, we are aiming to provide support to our village and the region by establishing an agricultural development cooperative," she added.

As the region is known for high-quality hazelnut varieties, the collective usually gets roasted hazelnut, macaron, hazelnut paste and hazelnut cookie orders from big cities such as Istanbul, Ankara and İzmir.

They also produce fruit jam, grape molasse, vinegar and cornflour using heirloom seeds.

"We are working in groups. We manage all the processes with social media, logistics, packaging, sewing, production and project departments. In the meantime, we have been creating a corporate structure. Through establishing a cooperative, we are aiming at expanding our departments and growing with sales to foreign countries," Altundaş said.

"We have been more engaged with farming during the pandemic, and we have decided to share the output with people. Everybody has the right to get clean food produced through natural farming. In this sense, we want to be a bridge. We deliver our products without any intermediaries."

The initiative is also in contact with the hazelnut processing and sales cooperatives union, Fiskobirlik, to use geographical indications for...