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Tulip planting program puts İstanbul on export track
That effort has started paying off, as farmers enrolled in the program are expected to harvest 3 million tulip bulbs this year, up from 2.5 million bulbs in 2009. The revenue of the program totaled TL 412,500 ($276,660) last year, with individual farmers earning on average TL 5,065. But the program’s goals go beyond the purely economic. “We are not only aiming to make a profit, but also want to fulfill our social responsibility, by creating employment and preventing migration to the city of İstanbul, as well as contributing to the country’s economy,” Ağaç General Manager Eyyüp Karahan said to Sunday’s Zaman.
Currently, 23 farmers from the Seymen, Danamandıra and Kurfalı villages grow 65 different tulip varieties on a combined area of 50,000 square meters. Ağaç offers the growers training on the production, maintenance and cultivation of tulip bulbs and provides them with a guaranteed market, committing to purchase the flowers they produce.
“On average the program employs 150 people, but this number will increase significantly in the future,” Karahan believes. If the pilot project in Silivri is deemed successful, it will be expanded to other İstanbul districts. “In the long run, we want our villagers to produce 9 million tulip bulbs, İstanbul’s yearly need, after which we hope to start exporting tulips -- hopefully by 2014. In the future, we are aiming to create 230,000 jobs in the sector,” Karahan said.
International Tulip Festival
Tulips originally hail from eastern Turkey and the steppes of Central Asia and were cultivated by the Ottomans, who took the flower to their imperial capital of İstanbul, where they embellished the sultan’s palaces and the gardens of the elite. In 1563, the tulip made its way to Europe, including today’s biggest producer, the Netherlands, when an Austrian ambassador at the court of Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent brought some tulip bulbs back home.
For many Turks, though, the word tulip has a negative ring to it. Historically speaking, the so-called “Tulip Era” (1718-1730) is commonly seen as a period when the sultan and administrators put pleasure over politics, thereby forgetting about their people. Not so for İstanbul Mayor Topbaş, who has put the flower at the center of attention during the past five years. In 2004, İstanbul authorities started a large-scale program to adorn the city with millions of tulips in all hues and colors under the slogan “The tulip is returning to its motherland.”
According to the İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality Park and Gardens Directorate, a total of 9.3 million tulips will be planted this year, using about 1 percent of the directorate’s yearly budget. Talking to Sunday’s Zaman, a spokesperson from the directorate said that the total cost of the tulip planting project as of today amounts to TL 4.4 million, stressing that “this cost is repaid through the benefits that the International Tulip Festival has in bringing foreign and domestic tourists to the city in the springtime.”
Apart from the Silivri district, the Turkish tulip industry is mainly situated in Çumra, in Konya province, Şanlıurfa in the Southeast and the eastern province of Van. The total tulip production for Turkey now hovers at around 40 million bulbs a year, bringing in estimated annual revenue of TL 6.6 million.
That puts Turkey still a long way from unseating the world’s biggest tulip exporter, the Netherlands. To give an idea, Dutch exports of cut flowers, bulbs and plants amounted to 6.4 billion euros ($9.2 billion) in 2008, according to figures from the Flower Council of Holland. An estimated 9 billion flower bulbs are produced in Holland every year, of which 7 billion are exported.
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