Tropical fruit producers in Gazipasa, Antalya, a city located in southern Turkey, focus on the European market. They grow a variety of tropical fruits, such as dragon fruits, avocados and lychees among others.
Farmers in Gazipasa who produced bananas for many years have recently started to shift towards tropical fruits due to higher profits. This trend started with avocado, and now continues with lychee, longan, passiflora, mango, papaya, dragon fruits, guava, coffee and cacao.
Two varieties of bananas, all varieties of avocados, two varieties of dragon fruits and passiflora have already been patented.
Dragon fruit costs 25 Turkish Lira (3,8 Euro) per piece, mango costs 35 Turkish Lira (5,4 Euro) per piece, papaya costs 12 Turkish Lira (1,8 Euro) per piece and lychee costs 130 Turkish Lira (20 Euro) per kilo.
Farmers still produce bananas and avocados the most. Both products are exported. However, other tropical fruits are only consumed domestically. They are usually sent to luxury hotels, big supermarket chains and farmers' markets. Tropical fruits are sold per piece and tourists are very much interested in them.
In order to increase the production of tropical fruits in the district, Tropical Fruits Production and Marketing Cooperative was founded. The priority of the initiative is to start exports to European market.
"Tropical fruits don't grow in other parts of Turkey"
Ali Yalcin, chairman of the cooperative, announced that they already have 50 members and that they will overcome problems in production.
"There are a lot of new mango and dragon fruit gardens in the area. These are tropical fruits and they don't grow in other parts of Turkey. This is why they are all concentrated in one place." said Yalcin.
"We would like to export tropical fruits to Europe"
Stating that some fruits have already been patented, Ali Yalcin said that this will be followed with mango and lychee. Yalcin underlined that the cooperative is new and that they welcome potential partners.
Then, he continued: "We are the center of tropical fruits in Turkey. We wish to introduce new flavors to Turkish people. Besides, Europe is very close to us and it is a very big market. Tropical fruits are very popular in Europe. Especially, France and Germany consume these a lot. However, they have to export them from far away countries. Not only the quality of the product drops, but also the costs increase. As we increase our production and make sure of its continuity, we would like to export tropical fruits to Europe."
In Gazipasa district, farmers grow bananas in an area of 1,600 hectares, mangoes in an area of 2 hectares and dragon fruits in an area of 2,4 hectares.
Yusuf Celik, chairman of Gazipasa Chamber of Agriculture, emphasized that the fields for growing tropical fruits are expanding.
"It is easy to take care of tropical fruits and the revenue from these is high. Both variety and the production of tropical fruits will increase. We've started to export tropical fruits and we already export avocados. We hope that we will soon export other products as well." said Celik.
Source: Hurriyet
