Tobacco producers, who don’t have an “authorization certificate”, will be prohibited from planting tobacco in Turkey by the new law, which is expected to enter into force in January 2022. Xanım Katırcı, a tobacco producer, reacts to the ban, “We will go hungry because tobacco is our only means of living.”

MEDİNE MAMEDOĞLU

Semsur- After the privatization of tobacco and its products, foreign companies get 90% of the tobacco market in Turkey. In 2017, the amendments to the Anti-Smuggling Law numbered 5607 demands tobacco producers to obtain an “authorization certificate” from the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry in order to prevent people, who grow tobacco in their fields, from selling it. The tobacco producers, who don’t have this certificate, have been completely prohibited from selling tobacco. The new amendments will enter into force in January 2022. The tobacco producers, particularly, female producers emphasize that they will go hungry when the new amendments enter into force.

Xanım Katırcı, who is hanging the leaves of tobacco up on a string to dry them under the sun in the Kömürlü town of Semsur (Adıyaman), has grown tobacco for more than 20 years. She has grown and sold tobacco with her children in order to earn a livelihood. “We work for months to grow tobacco but they ban us from selling it in a day.”

“Tobacco is our only means of living”

While Xanım Katırcı is hanging the leaves of tobacco up on a string, she also criticizes the ban. “None of my children has a job. I grow and dry tobacco under the sun and my children help me. If they ban us from selling tobacco, we will go hungry. I earn money to send my children to school. If we are banned, I don’t know what I will do next year. Tobacco is our only means of living. People living here will have to leave if they cannot grow and sell tobacco.”

“If the state bans us from selling tobacco and we will go hungry”

Pointing out that tobacco is a more profitable business than both agriculture and animal husbandry, Xanım Katırcı said that the state paves the way for big companies but blocks the tobacco producers. “We will be fined if we keep growing tobacco. People living here earn a livelihood by growing tobacco. If they ban us from growing and selling tobacco, we will go hungry. We spend months growing, collecting and drying the leaves of tobacco.  But we will not remain silent against this ban.”