Antalya area agriculture

These posts are coming a bit out of order as I toggle between devices with battery power on the road and uploading back at the hotel when I have Wifi. Still figuring out how to do this while on the road.  [And now finishing them up back in the U.S.]

So this post covers our tours on Monday, February 4th, before Aspendos. Our first stop was Antalya's terminal market where we met with the market's boss (an actual term used in some cases) who then gave us a quick tour of the facility including a company that was packing tomatoes. He seemed to enjoy marching through the facility with our group trailing behind like goslings.

The market is government owned with 600 tenant companies who buy local/regional produce from farmers in the region as well as import some and then distribute throughout the country and the region.

The facility was very reminiscent of Hunts point terminal market in New York City. In addition to the broker/distributors' units, there was an open air market were unconsigned product is bought and sold.

Much of Turkey's produce comes from greenhouse production which is prevalent in the Antalya region. There are huge swaths of land covered by greenhouses but unfortunately I haven't been able to get a good picture depicting that.

Fittingly after the tour of the terminal market, we visited a nearby greenhouse and nursery operation, Kurgu Peysaj,  though it grew indoor plants and ornamentals. The hosts were very affable and as was the case at many stops we were served tea, though unlike the usual black tea (which I'm becoming fond of) this was an herbal tea.

Nothing way out of the ordinary here except the proprietor seemed very intent on finding new varieties of plants making sure he had in stock what his customers were looking for.

After lunch our next stop was an orchard operation about 45 km East of Antalya.   This was a substitute stop in that we were supposed to see some of the orchards owned by Alara Orchards, whose CEO Yavuz Taner (who had flown down from Bursa to meet with our group) had spoken with us the previous evening, however his orchards were wet with the recent rains, so he had arranged a visit to some growers from whom Alara purchases fruit.

Interestingly these two American educated brothers did not have a farm background as their family was in real estate development.  Their 150 acres were relatively new (in the background of the pictures of their tree fruit, plums - already flowering -- peaches, and cherries, greenhouses are evident.).  They were quite pleased to see us and even had a foamboard sign made up saying welcome Cornell University complete with the Cornell logo, which they had us sign upon our departure.  I'm not sure how they pulled that off given the short notice of our visit.

Dinner that night was in a funky restaurant that was in a converted carpark in the old part of the city called Parlek Restaurant.  Their roast chicken was great and I got to try some rock Raki which is the national drink of sorts of Turkey.  Flavored with aniseed, it tastes like licorice/sambuca, but I didn't care for it much.