In Tokat, where 20 million stems of flowers are produced annually, the aim is to reach the annual flower production figure of 45 million stems and become the second-largest production center in Turkey.
To meet the employment needs of the cut flower industry, which produces 20 million stems of 25 varieties of flowers annually in the Erbaa district, the project was prepared by the Erbaa District Governorate Village Service Association with the support of the Central Black Sea Development Agency.
To meet the demand for skilled labor, a total of 400 people, 300 of them women, have been included in the training program. The project, which has also set up a floriculture greenhouse for applied training, plans to integrate those who participate in the training activities into the sector, have them working in the greenhouse and earn income through the cooperative that is to be set up. In the district, where around 100 people have completed their training, flowers are produced on a total area of 90 hectares. The aim is to make Erbaa the second production center of cut flowers in Turkey.
Governor of Erbaa District, Ismail Altan Demirayak, explained that they developed the project especially to help women with income-generating activities: "We have implemented a project within the framework of the 2023 program of the Erbaa District Governorship Union for providing services to villages. The name of our project is 'Let Erbaa Empower You with Flowers'. The supporter of this project is the Central Black Sea Development Agency. Within the framework of this project, we aim to increase the employment of women in cut flower production, especially in Erbaa, and to support our women with income-generating activities by producing more in this field. The area we are currently working in is the Tokat Special Provincial Administration, the infrastructure of which was created by the Tokat Governorate."
Explaining that the project will bring 300 women into the sector, Demirayak said, "The organized flower production region we have created here is a production region where 108 producers are actively producing. Our province Erbaa is a very suitable region for the production of cut flowers due to its soil structure and climatic characteristics. The fact that cut flower production can be carried out in such a large area has shown the need for employment and qualified labor. Through this, we have qualified and trained nearly 400 workers in floriculture, 3/4 of whom will be women. We aim to support an income-generating activity by involving at least 300 of our women in this production sector. We are not only providing training as part of the project. We have set up a 3,000-square-meter greenhouse as part of this program. At the end of the training process, we will operate our 3,000-square-meter greenhouse through a grower women's cooperative formed by our women. We will involve our women in the production activities in this greenhouse. They will be involved in both training and production activities in the greenhouse that we have set up. "The income they earn there will go back to our women through this cooperative."
Demirayak said in his statement: "Our goal in the coming period is to become the second largest production center in Turkey after Yalova, especially in terms of summer and autumn production between April and December. We will expand our production area to more than 100 hectares in greenhouses and our production volume to 40-45 million cut flowers in 25 different varieties to become the second production center in Turkey after Yalova with summer production. We will create enough qualified labor. We have enough space. We will continue to support this. As a next step, we want to establish the cut flower trading center of the entire Black Sea region by creating a cold storage and auction area here".
Source: Gazete Duvar