Turkey Farming

Hello Everybody!

I would like to make a summary about my experience with the Turkish agricultural side after we circled around the entire country during the last two and a half months...

After entering Turkey we stopped by at a field, where an older FX 40 with 6-row Orbis - which really represanted the average machine in TR, I figured out later - was working in the corn...

The irigation system in Turkey is a little different. Farmers here put thin plastic tubes along the field, every 2nd row. They have little holes to drain the water every half a meter. I was very suprised about the treatment of those parts during harvest, because nobody cares about and they run allover them all the time... ?!?

I drove a while with the operator and figured out that chopping quality is different in Turkey, compared to Germany...??

Uuups.... :-)

In Bursa, I visited Bursa Tarim Fuari. The biggest farm-show in Turkey and almost all important brands did attend at the fuari. The Turkish market consists out of small hp-machines. So the average tractor sale is in the range between 60 to 69 hp, I’ve been told by sales people from New Holland, who take more than 50% of the market share!!!

One of their top-selling products, the 65 - 56S. A very simple machine!

The same with combines and forage harvesters. Just the medium products are required in Turkey, like CLAAS Tucano  or NH TC – series combines.

Also the people from Rostselmash out of Russia try to enter the Turkish market with their  new RSM-modell, which is mainly a copy of the Jaguar…

Their international sales manager told me - in a very Russian mood - that they are looking forward into extending their business further west. After 3 years in the Turkish market and 4 units in 2010 and 6 in 2011 they want to enter Hungarian market and Romania and extend further west till Poland with their forage harvesters and combines.

Having a closer look at the machines - and due to the fact that the CLAAS-area was right next to them- I could really tell a lot of similar parts and the whole outside design appears like a red Jaguar. II've got told the new RSM-series has mounted ZF-Axles, V8-engines from Mercedes-Benz and consists out of many parts from CLAAS Industry... 

Very honestly he explained that corn in Europe is way stronger, harder and has a much higher yield than in Russia, so their own cornheads do not perform very succesfully. So all machines for Eastern Europe are getting equiped with KEMPER-cornheads.

It looks like that the head of Rostselmash really intends to increase their business slightly westwards...!?  ;-)

I tried successfully to make an appointment with a member of the fair organization team and it turned out that Mr. Engün, the Project Manager from TÜYAP Fairs Inc. and head of this fair took some time for me and we had an interesting discussion about Turkish farming.

He explained me that Turkish agricultural manufactures increasing their business between 6 - 8% anually. A lot of machines are sold to the middle east like Iran, Iraq and Saudi-Arabia, but to different African countries, as well. This is because Turkis ag-machines are known to be very reliable, not that much than German ones, Mr. Engün added himself, but therefor way cheaper...  :-) 

HAATAT Traktör a Turkish manufacturer, which also produces the A-series of VALTRA-tractors for the market overhere...

I spent 2 very interesting days on the fairground before we left Bursa into East direction. Everybody told us, that after Bursa everything will become way more rural and this wasn’t a lie, at all.

Beside the main road no. 100, which goes from west to east Turkey, from the Bulgarian all the way to the Iranian border, all other roads are very small, partly not solid, under construction or suddenly turn into gravel without any warning. But I like that…!!! ;-)

The people in the rural are a kind of poor and many of them are farmers. Corn havest of 2 hectar sometimes takes a few days and with only one tractor, who carries several trailers...

So sometimes  lonely trailers appear in the fields.... ;-)

Tractors are also quite small. Mostly between 30till 60 hp.

Their tractor is everything, so the farmers take very good care and cover them very often with blankets...

All the machines are low-spec like this TC 56

again New Holland ... :-)

Just the tracks are special on this combine. No residue management and just mechanical adjustment for the sieves and everything else. Very simple, to keep the price low...

For me it looked like, that NH takes major business in very category of machines in Turkey!?

Because not all the tracors are 4WD-equipped, it's Mustafa with his new ERKUNT

who is responsable for the overloading-job between the combine and the other trailers.

Unbelievable.... :-)

Due there is no straw-management at the combines I was interested what happened with it, because so far I didn't see any round or even big balers in Northern Turkey. Just with a lighter Mustafa tried to explain me...

... that they burn it, after a week of drying. 

Turkisf farmers grow "Pirinc", a variety of rice very often and beside that al lot of wheat. That harvest is also in quite wet conditions...

In Rize in Eastern-turkey it's Ismael, a farmer who invited us to stay at his home for a night. He told me many intersting things about farming in Turkey. I was very suprised how those poor farmers can exist by almost 2€/ litre of Diesel. Ismael explained, that everything, which is not related to entertainment does not cost the common price. So the local farmers have just to pay a certain and way lower amount of the price.

That's Ismael together with us, after he served us a great dinner. He also mentioned that almost 50% of the people in eastern Turkey live from the agricultural side and mostly are self-supporters. I guess in those 4 hours I've learned more about Turkish farming than during 4 weeks research on a German office desk... ;-)

It's the goverment, which takes care about appr. 20% of the land. This is very well organized according to structure and location. They also run up to +300 hp machines and doing probably an efficient business!?

But the rest of the land is very shattered into many pieces even smaller than one acre...

Most of the local farmers sell their products right away on the street...

...and having a lot of fun, while doing it! :-)

Beside all this along the south coast, where it is way warmer, they grow many kind of fruits and vegetables like tomatos, bananas, oranges, a lot of lemons.

We've spend one night into a field of lemon trees and thought we did hide very well, but it was mistaken. Next morning the farmer came, but wasn't angry at all. He was very interesting in us and we had some nice talk before leaving. So he explained, that Tureky exports the majorty of their lemons to Russia and other countries further east (where it is not so warm, I guess).... 

To be honest, on our way back across the south of Turkey during the last week I wasn't anymore that much in the mood to take many pictures. I'm very exhausted because of my previous sickness, that dissapointments in Iran and just being somewhere else almost every day during the last 8 months.

But, by the way, I don't regret anything at all and am very proud of every single kilometer I drove out of the 28.137 and will continue, for sure.......

All the best to everyone!

Alexander Conrad