Pesticides

Vegetable production increased by 5.6% in 2024 compared to the previous year, reaching 33.6 million tons, while fruit production increased by 2.1% to reach 28 million tons. Of the fresh fruits and vegetables produced, 4.2 million tons worth 3.4 billion USD were exported.

Due to pesticide notifications received from most of these countries, food products were either returned or destroyed.

In common parlance, pesticides are referred to as "medicine," but their true meaning is toxic chemical substances used in agriculture.

In other words, we are deceiving ourselves. These chemical substances, or agricultural poisons, are used for the purpose of obtaining higher yields, that is, generating more profit.

There is no official statistic in Turkey regarding which pesticide is used and in what quantity. We can only draw inferences from tests conducted on products exported abroad. This means none of us know how much poison, in all its various colors, is being sold in our markets and bazaars.

The European Union's pesticide policies are very strict. If products are not accepted, they are either destroyed on the spot or sent back to our country. Whether they are destroyed here or not is determined by whether the amount of pesticide is compliant with Turkey's standards and the cost of bringing the products back. In other words, if it is more profitable to feed them to us than to destroy them there, the products rejected by EU countries are released into the domestic market.

Pesticides have many side effects on humans. Severe poisoning can occur, leading to fatigue, head and body aches, cramps, panic attacks, tremors, vision impairment, vomiting, nausea, excessive sweating, dizziness, skin rashes, coma, and even death.

It is estimated that approximately 200 thousand people lose their lives every year worldwide due to pesticide poisoning.

It is very difficult to predict the long-term effects of what we ingest in small doses without realizing it. They lead to neurological diseases and respiratory illnesses, and cause early puberty and sperm anomalies in children.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry published the "Regulation on Amending the Turkish Food Codex Regulation on Maximum Residue Limits of Pesticides" in the duplicate Official Gazette dated January 7, 2025, updating pesticide residue levels and banning certain pesticides. A 3-month period was given to producers to comply with this new regulation, and penalties for violations were increased.

Getting a pesticide test done is neither cheap nor an easy process for a citizen to perform. However, it is obvious that if we could take the products from the greengrocer or market where we shop every day and send them for analysis, a high rate of pesticides—that is, poison—would be found. These poisons cause leukemia in children and all kinds of cancer in adults. Just like the radiation emitted by technological devices, the crops we eat every day are also poisoning us regularly. We must accept the fact that we are being poisoned by our own producers every day as a matter of survival and national security.

Unfortunately, the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry does not report and disclose the pesticide rates of agricultural products, just as it does for adulterated products.

The inspections required to prevent banned agricultural chemicals cover an infinite number of production sites, but simple and inexpensive measures that supermarkets can take could protect public health.

Machines that measure the presence and rate of pesticides can perform 100 analyses in 1 hour. Supermarkets with tens of thousands of branches could use one hundred-thousandth of their annual turnover to establish laboratories for the analysis of the products they will sell to their customers, and could quickly, easily, and cheaply separate poisonous fruits and vegetables—that is, products produced by "agricultural killer" farmers—from the others.

Furthermore, there is something else that requires courage: returning to the soil. Being a peasant and being a farmer are different concepts, and in the age we live in, producing healthy and abundant food requires will and investment rather than just knowledge.

A completely different life awaits the youth who waste their lives in subways, metrobuses, or traffic in metropolitan cities in Anatolia. In exchange for the real estate or the annual rent paid in metropolitan cities, very large and fertile agricultural lands can be purchased in Anatolia.

It is well known that the state has no incentives for returning to the soil. However, the abandonment of the Turk is not a new situation. At the beginning of the last century, we sacrificed an entire generation for these lands that we are poisoning today.

It pains me to accept everything so easily and to internalize it.