In Adana, one of Turkey's main citrus production areas, mandarin harvesting stalled last month when agricultural workers held a nine-day strike. As a result, fruit remained on the trees and orchard prices dropped to between 3 and 5 lira per kilogram, equal to about US$0.10 to US$0.17.
Adana accounts for about 40 per cent of Turkey's citrus output, with mandarins planted on roughly 383 thousand acres, or about 155 thousand hectares. Harvesting began at the end of September. While agricultural frost affected other crops in the Çukurova region this season, early mandarin varieties, including okitsu, mihowase, early, and primasol, did not show frost damage.
Before the strike, orchards were reporting yields of 4 to 6 tons per acre, or about 10 to 15 tons per hectare. Early-season fruit was selling for 8 to 15 lira per kilogram, depending on quality. When the nine-day labour stoppage halted harvesting, early varieties remained on the trees and later suffered damage. Once workers returned and orange harvesting started, the overlap with high mandarin volumes left growers unable to clear orchards. Export programs to Europe and Russia were also disrupted because damaged fruit could not be loaded for shipment.
Yüreğir Agricultural Chamber President Mehmet Akın Doğan said, "When the workers did not show up for 9 days, the fruit was delayed. This fruit should not have been delayed until now. Mandarins have lost their shelf life and cannot go to the foreign market; they are being consumed in the domestic market. Only the good ones are being sent abroad. Mandarins, which reached a price of up to 15 lira in the first harvest, are currently finding buyers at 3-5 lira."
Doğan noted that mandarins were the only crop in the region not affected by frost and that yields in some varieties increased. He said on-time harvesting would have prevented fruit from remaining on the trees. Although mandarin harvesting was expected to finish by the end of October, picking operations were still continuing into mid-November.
He added that 10 to 20 per cent of the mandarin crop in Hatay and Adana is expected to remain unharvested. "Due to the high yield of mandarins, 10-20% of the product will remain on the tree in Hatay and Adana. If they had been harvested on time, these fruits would not have remained on the tree. This has harmed both the national economy and our farmers," he said.
Source: Haberler
