Boğaziçi Academics Researched What Do Farmers Want?

Boğaziçi University faculty members Zühre Aksoy and Özlem Öz, who work on Kavılca Wheat of Kars, who are in the group called Ancient Wheat Group because it can preserve its 13 thousand-year-old status and has not been tamed with genetics, Özlem Öz said, explored in the field.

“Most of the farmers we interviewed attach great importance to meeting with agricultural engineers. During planting, they want engineers to come to the field and show what is right and what is wrong. "Farmers, agricultural experts and agricultural engineers should work together on an equal basis, benefiting from each other's knowledge, and this process should be institutionalized," he said.

Boğaziçi University Political Science and International Relations Department faculty member Assoc. Dr. Zühre Aksoy and Business Administration faculty member Prof. Dr. Ozlem Oz, made a field study they conducted in-depth interviews in consultation with a total of 22 farmers in Turkey as well as leading farmers from different regions of both an ancient wheat varieties that speech survive by wheat to including 30 farmers who continue to grow in Kars.

Met with farmers all over Turkey

Academics had explained their research conducted in two stages: "uses traditional production methods in different regions of Turkey's first stage, talked with the leading farmers. Thanks to these interviews covering a wide geography from Antakya, Niğde, Adapazarı, İzmir and Kars, we saw the reflections of the problems in our minds in the field. In the second stage, we took the farmers who continue to grow traditional wheat varieties in Kars as an exemplary case. "

A wheat variety unique to Kars: Kavılca

The researchers also explained why they chose Kars as the case study: “Kars is a perfect example to explore the possibilities and constraints that arise when farmers' traditional knowledge and methods are integrated with scientific agriculture knowledge. one of Turkey's poorest socio-economic region, but has a very important place in terms of biodiversity. Here, they especially make an effort to keep the Kavılca wheat, which is one of the oldest wheat varieties and identified with the region, alive. "

Farmers want engineers to come to the field

Stating that although they attach importance to obtaining high yield from the products of the farmers they interviewed, the researchers stated that their only priority is not yield and that the farmers could not obtain regular information about technological developments: “The farmers we interviewed were not only planting traditional seeds but also developed modern seed varieties. So, rather than denying new information from experts, they want to learn about technological advances that will meet their needs. For example, they say engineers cannot learn the information we can put on what we learned from our grandparents. They care about meeting with agricultural engineers and, for example, they want the engineer to come to the field during planting to show what is right and what is wrong. ”

"The process of working together of farmers and engineers should be institutionalized"

Özlem Öz and Zühre Aksoy made the following suggestions on how to bring together traditional agricultural knowledge and technological developments in a way that prioritizes the needs of farmers: “Farmers and agricultural experts, agricultural engineers should work together on an equal basis using each other's knowledge and this process should be institutionalized. Already it has an important agricultural research infrastructure in Turkey. It can be a starting point for the public sector, scientists and farmers to come together and determine the priorities in agricultural production through participatory mechanisms. "