The 18th Mandarin Festival was celebrated in Turkey’s mandarin heaven Seferihisar with great enthusiasm thanks to almost twenty thousand participants. Seferihisar Mayor Tunc Soyer made a moving speech on declining mandarin agriculture.
The festival started with the ceremonial walk of the children and the Seferihisar Band’s concert. Local products of Seferihisar and mandarin products are sold at the market area.
CHP Izmir Assembly Member Zeynep Altıok, Attila Sertel, Tacettin Bayır, Izmir Metropolitan Municipality Mayor Aziz Kocaoglu, Seferihisar District Governor İlhan Abay, representatives from all over Turkey and citizens were present at the mandarin festival.
THE CRY OF MANDARINS
Seferihisar Mayor Tunc Soyer made the opening speech of the festival stressing the importance of the continuity of the mandarin growing: “As Mayors we are commissioned to save the city, its environment and its history. That’s why we are fighting against the tuna farming and constructed the stray animal shelter. It is our duty to save our nature and the mandarin trees, which are the most important asset of Seferihisar. “
MUNICIPALITY IS AGAINST THE DEMOLITION OF THE TREES
“Seferihisar is almost a big mandarin grove and we work relentlessly to increase the value of the product and income of the farmers. We primarily founded the Mandarin Producers’ Unity. Then purchased a processing and packaging facility and assigned it to the Unity. We built a cold storage unit to increase the shelf-life, the added value, also the competitive market advantages of the fruit. The latest product we developed is dried mandarins. We started with a daily capacity of 300 kg’s and managed to increase the added value of the mandarins to five-folds. New export channels had been found. This year we do export mandarins for 1,2 Euro a kilo to Germany. But I have to mention a serious issue about the lumbering of the mandarin groves. There is a misunderstanding that Seferihisar Municipality started permitting construction in mandarin groves, which is not true.
THE ZONING PLANS HAVE BEEN MADE IN 1985 BY THE STATE
Seferihisar’s zoning plans had been made in 1985 by the State and our municipality still issues permits according to these plans and can not act against them. In short the mandarin groves fell victim of the 1985 zoning plans. All we can do is to increase the market value of mandarins so that the groves owners would not opt for selling their fields to construction companies. The will keep on working for sustainable agriculture, founding producer cooperatives, create value-added products and protect local seeds. Only the countries continuing agricultural production will survive the forthcoming global food crisis. We will multiply seeds and produce mandarins persistently.”
KOCAOĞLU: I CALL FOR SOLIDARITY
Aziz Kocaoglu , the Mayor of Izmir Metropolitan Municipality emphasized the importance of local development. He stated: “Izmir has been the second fast growing city of the world in 2014. I would like to thank Seferihisar Mayor Tunc Soyer for his support to local seeds and mandarin growers. In the last decade the growth of agriculture in Turkey was 2,1, in Izmir 5,5, which corresponds more than 2,5 times. We shall work, produce, summon local growth and live in peace. We observe that the world management has many bottlenecks. What we supposed to do is adopt the Might Leader Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s foreign policies. That’s ‘Peace in at home, peace all around the world” shall be our motto, we shall work on peace in our country and build moderate relations with our neighbouring counties. Turkey’s primary issue is the problematic foreign relations. I call for solidarity. “
MANDARIN KING AND QUEEN
The festival also included a beauty contest and ‘Best Mandarin Grower’ selection. The beauty contest was organized via Rönesans Agency.