Small town seeks boost with tomato

Before tourism came to the shores of Fethiye and beyond, agriculture was the area’s mainstay. Nomadic communities herded goats and sheep and cash crops on the irrigated areas of rich fertile soil, which included tobacco, chickpeas, peanuts and lentils.

There are still areas where little has changed but now more and more land has been taken over by tourism; villas and hotels together with shiny plastic poly-tunnels, both of which are dedicated to the ripening process. Tourists bask and ripen by pools or on the beaches and tomatoes do pretty much the same on the land behind the coast.

Fethiye was once the tomato capital of southwestern Turkey but now Kumluova, a municipality on the main road between Fethiye and Kalkan appears to have taken over.

In fact, tomatoes have always been grown here, but during the last decade or so the uneconomic and unreliable crops grown in the open air have now been taken over by the more productive, all year round process of the poly tunnels or "sera." These have the benefit of wood burning stoves to ward off frost during winter months.

Kumluova resident Timur Genç is impressed by the developments made to tomato production in his town and said, "The natural processes of growing tomatoes have been overtaken by the importation of manipulated seeds from the Netherlands. The plants produce sterile fruit and so the next year seeds have to be bought again.

"Fertilizers and pesticides are also imported. More surprisingly the bees that pollinate the plants are brought in containers from the Netherlands as well."

Ready for festival
It’s not everybody’s choice but the burgeoning tomato market has brought new prosperity to some of the town’s people. This week, the newly elected mayor of Kumluova, Alım Karaca, will open the third Tomato Festival for the area and will make a speech celebrating the town’s tomato crop. It is his hope, and also that of the town, that the unfinished building of the first school started by the previous administration will benefit from money raised at the festival. There will be a market with stalls, games and music provided by local Turkish pop group "Marjinal" and Türkü folk music singer Emine Akmeşe.

Genç describes how Eastern Europe has provided a boost for the local economy by ordering huge quantities of Kumluova’s tomatoes and last year causing a price hike to unprecedented levels. The tomatoes grown on such an industrial scale are not the ones for which Turkey used to be famous. Those are large, uneven and more pink than red and sometimes quite enormous. They can still be bought in farmers’ markets but for how much longer is anyone’s guess.

Now the shops stock the round red tomatoes or the cherry vine variety, which have a regularity of production, size and shape but maybe not the same taste of the traditional varieties. They are, however, tastier than anything that can be found on the shelf of European stores.

One should be happy that Kumluova is keeping an authentic link to the country’s agricultural heritage. These tomatoes can be bought all year round. The large yield producing much needed money for Kumluova to improve its public facilities and quality of daily life, is also much appreciated by residents.