The farmer's test with the economy: You need to sell 30 truckloads of watermelons for an iPhone 17
When looking at the iPhone 17, which has occupied the agenda for weeks with talk of its release, from the perspective of a farmer and in terms of agricultural production, some interesting figures emerge.
İHA
From the farmer's perspective, it will not be very easy for them to afford these phones. If producers want to buy this luxury communication device by selling their products solely at the farm-gate price, without even covering a single one of their input costs such as fertilizer, diesel, labor, or pesticides, they will have to sacrifice a significant amount of agricultural produce.
For example, a tomato producer who wants to buy the new model with the lowest price of 80 thousand liras needs to sell 20 tons of processing tomatoes, which are priced at 4 liras per kilogram.
Considering that the price of oil olives is currently 40 liras per kilogram in the Edremit and Ayvalık districts of Balıkesir, the iPhone is equivalent to 2 tons of green olives.
In the Karacabey district of Bursa and the Sındırgı district of Balıkesir, farmers can buy the new phone if they sell 8 tons of processing peppers, which have an average price of 10 liras per kilogram.
Wheat, the most strategic product, is finding buyers at 14 liras per kilogram these days. A grain producer in Konya can keep up with the phone trend by selling approximately 5.7 tons of product.
A cotton producer in Adana and Şanlıurfa needs to sell 2.5 tons of their product, which is priced at 31 liras per kilogram.
MORE PRODUCE IS NEEDED FOR THE HIGHEST MODEL
Reaching the highest model, the iPhone Pro Max 2 TB, seems very difficult for farmers, and they have to sacrifice even more produce.
For the 220 thousand lira phone, 55 tons of processing tomatoes are needed. In other words, a farmer has to sacrifice more than 2 truckloads—based on a 24-ton truck capacity—of the tomatoes they harvested, without even covering their expenses.
A green olive producer can own this phone by selling 5.5 tons of oil olives, which are priced at 40 liras per kilogram.
A wheat farmer needs to sell over 15 tons, or 15 thousand 714 kilograms of wheat, for the highest model.
A cotton producer can reach the highest model of the iPhone 17 by selling 7 thousand 96 kilograms of product, and a bell pepper farmer by parting with about a truckload, or 22 thousand kilograms.
Based on a calculation using watermelons, which dropped to 30 kuruş in the summer months, the 220 thousand lira phone is equivalent to 733 tons of watermelons; in other words, 30 truckloads of watermelons.