Writer: Ayça Olcaytu İşçen
August 2008

Organic farming (can be used as biological or ecological farming) has been started in 1930s in Great Britain under control but Turkey met with organic farming at the beginning of 1980s. The first implementations have been done in Aegean Region and as time pass the implementations have spread to the other places. According to the 2007 data in Turkey organic farming is being implemented approximately on 93 thousand hectare area. In world gradation as yet Turkey is under the average at the moment but we believe in that in few years its mark will get higher with the raising awareness among the people. The organic farming was shaped on 1 December 2004 with the ‘Organic Farming Law’ numbered 5262; the studies are being done mostly in İzmir with the leadership of Ministry of Agriculture and continued under the supervision of control and certification companies. In order to sell a product as ‘organic’, the approval of these companies should be taken and the logo of “Organic Farming-Turkish Republic” should be on the package.
The organic farming is quite new in Cappadocia region. Osman Yüksel who is the only certified organic producer in Cappadocia, got his license in June 2008. Because of facing problems in farming potatoes, the farmers slowly started to switch the system into organic farming and thanks to this; farmers plant strawberry, broccoli and etc by organic farming. In order to understand the recent developments in the region about organic farming, we had an interview with Osman Yüksel, Ömer Tosun and Ahmet Yiğitoğlu, the pioneers of organic farming in Cappadocia. We wish these studies are developed in Turkey and we wish only the natural one remained in our lives.

Note: This article has been published in Peribacası Cappadocia Culture and Publicity Magazine, August 2008 issue. It is under protection of the copyrights of the magazine. No part of this article may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by electronic, mechanical or other means without prior permission from the owner. www.cappadociaexplorer.com