Newsletters
Fields in Izmir's Torbali district, one of Türkiye's major centers for dried tomato production, are turning red as the annual drying season gets underway. Tomatoes planted in April and harvested in July are brought by truck or tractor to fields and display areas across the Torbali plain.
Farm workers cut the tomatoes in half and lay them out on covers, where they are left to dry in the sun for a week, either salted or treated with sulfur depending on customer demand.
Most of those working in Torbali's tomato-drying industry are agricultural laborers who have traveled from Türkiye's Southeastern Anatolia Region. Living in tents, these families work far from home, hundreds of kilometers away, in what is locally referred to as "gurbet," meaning labor performed away from one's hometown.
Working for hours under the sun, each laborer can cut an average of 100 to 150 crates of tomatoes a day, depending on their speed. Since workers are paid according to the number of crates they process, they effectively race against time to cut as many tomatoes as possible.
Kemal Sayginer, one of the producers, announced that the tomato-drying process has begun in the region.
He said they were pleased with this year's harvest, adding: "We're in very good shape in terms of yield this year. The amount of tomatoes being harvested will make farmers happy. Our harvest began a week ago and is continuing at an increasing pace."
Sayginer said they collect the tomatoes from the fields early in the morning and cut them one by one before leaving them to dry.
Abdulvahap Olgun, head of the Torbali Chamber of Commerce, said tomatoes are among the district's key sources of income. Explaining that the drying process takes about a month, Olgun said: "Tomatoes are grown on 50,000 donums of land in Torbali." A donum is a traditional unit of land measurement used in Türkiye, roughly equal to 1,000 square meters, or about a quarter of an acre.
According to Olgun, roughly a quarter of the production is set aside for drying, while the rest goes toward tomato paste. He noted that paste factories used to be the only buyers, which drove down the product's value, but now drying factories have also entered the market, allowing farmers to earn more from their produce.
"Now our plain has turned red—the planting fields are bright red, and the greenhouses have started turning red as well. Red gold has spread across all of Torbali's plains. We also received the geographical indication certification for drying tomatoes, which is why they're in demand," Olgun said.
Set as preferred source
Set as preferred source
1 min read
1 min read
