Participatory action research with wheat landrace producers and community supported agriculture groups; a case from Turkey

ABSTRACT

After the 1960s, breeding activities carried out on many crops, including wheat, and the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, saw increased criticism of the negative consequences in terms of nutrition, social, and environmental impacts. There is a current re-emphasis upon changing the methods of flour and bread production technologies, and wheat landrace varieties have made a resurgence. Wheat landrace varieties have become widespread and create the demand for their consumption as an alternative to industrial wheat. Producers have come together to form collectives of different structures and seek ways to expand production of wheat landraces. As a result, alternative food consumption communities have become established in which consumers can access wheat landrace products. The factors related to the development of wheat, flour, bulgur, bread, etc. should be put forward to consumers and producers. The fieldwork of this research is based on five community supported food groups formed by consumers in the İzmir province of Turkey, and associations/groups that produce wheat varieties in Çanakkale, Balıkesir and Kars provinces. The aim of the research is to identify common problems that reduce the separation between wheat production and consumption and how to increase the use of wheat landraces and their products by using participatory action research.

KEYWORDS:

• Wheat landrace
• participatory action research
• community-supported agriculture
• participatory meetings
• consumption
• production

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. This is the short name of the project “Agricultural Tourism and Voluntary Information in Ecological Farms, Change of Experience” carried out by the Wheat Association. The main objective of the project TaTuTa is to promote ecological agriculture and to ensure its sustainability by providing economic information, a voluntary workforce and information support to small producers of ecological production.

2. Some of the wheat landraces named in the table were named by the producer himself. For example, the yellow wheat of Victor, seen in the table, is named after Victor Ananias, the founder of the Wheat Association, who fought for wheat landrace production and the environment for a long time. This is because they cannot reach the real name of the variety.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Ege University Research Foundation [2016-ZRF-021].