23 million children face 'pesticide' danger...

Oh, you who eat simit for breakfast and cannot give it up! 

Salmonella has been detected in sesame seeds exported from Turkey to Norway! 

Norway sent the seeds back with a 'dangerous' label. Were the returned sesame seeds destroyed? Or did they spread from simit stalls to our neighborhoods? We don't know!

The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry had stated that food products sent back from the European border labeled as containing 'toxic substances' are 100 percent inspected and that products not in compliance with regulations are destroyed.

Peppers, tomatoes, peanuts, lemons, and now sesame seeds! 

 If you haven't watched our documentary SULAR BULANMADAN (BEFORE THE WATERS GET MUDDY), watch it!

It is very wrong to place all the responsibility on the producer. Are you aware of how dirty the water the producer uses to irrigate their crops is?

Moreover, it is the irrigation unions that allocate this water!

The main protagonist of our documentary, which we filmed during the summer of 2024, was the Büyük Menderes River. 

We witnessed how the Büyük Menderes is being polluted.  Cotton fields and vegetable fields were being irrigated with water that was murky, foaming, and turning red in places due to chemical waste leaking from textile factories.

Let's listen to young farmer Necdet Güvenç, who irrigates his crops from the Büyük Menderes. 

“What the eye doesn't see, the heart doesn't grieve over,” says Necdet.

You are eating the products, the tomatoes, melons, and peppers, irrigated from the Menderes River where fish deaths have begun. 

I don't eat them!” 

Necdet has made a small garden for his family. He does not irrigate his crops with water provided from the Menderes, but with tap water from the city supply.

In other words; in addition to the pesticides found in the products that come to our tables, there are also chemical wastes released into the river, waste leaking from textile factories, microplastics, and dye bleaches, depending on which water basin they were produced in! 

There is plenty of poison in the products that come to our table, but no inspection! 

According to a study, the amount of pesticides used in Turkey, which was around 30 thousand tons in 1990, doubled to reach 60 thousand tons in 2018. In 2020, this rate reached 54 thousand tons!

It is stated that approximately 50 percent of the pesticides used in Turkey are used in Adana, Mersin, Manisa, Aydın, Bursa, İzmir, and Antalya. 

In 2020, pesticide use per hectare was approximately 14 kg in Antalya and 9 kg in Manisa.

Glyphosate, which is banned in various European countries, is used widely and uncontrollably in Turkey.

The work of the Heinrich Böll Foundation, which publishes the facts about pesticides used in agriculture in the “Pesticide Atlas,” is very valuable. Follow the publications of food engineer Assoc. Prof. Dr. Bülent Şık, who does not stop telling the public the truth through his research. 

Bülent Şık emphasizes in his studies that children are the most affected by pesticides, the usage rate of which has increased over the years.  

Today, 23 million children in Turkey are facing the danger of pesticides!

As a country, we need a serious wake-up call,

We are in dire need of an urgent mobilization.

The problem is,

There is no one listening, nor anyone taking a step in this direction…