The Celtikci area in Bursa, a city located in northwestern Turkey, is known for its cherry production, however the growers have left cherries on the trees this season due to low prices at the market and high labor costs.
The price of cherries went down by 50 % compared to previous year and sold at 0.25 – 0.35 USD per kg at the grower's. This price level was very disappointing for the growers and after taking into account the cost of labor, they decided to leave the products on the trees in order to avoid further losses.
Grower Orhan Akkuzu: “80% of the people in the area grow cherries. When the season first started, the wholesalers purchased our products at 1.25 – 1.5 USD per kg but this price only lasted a couple of days. Then the prices started to drop markedly until 0.25 USD per kg level at which point we stopped harvesting products. One daily worker costs around 18 USD per day, with these prices I cannot earn any money. I left around 1 ton of cherries on the trees, my brother, who is also a grower, left even more. The only variety that had a decent price was Napoleon which sold at 0.45 – 0.60 USD per kg”
Source: Yeni Mesaj