In the fertile Mardin plain in southeastern Turkey, a small patch of field stands out among others. Buckwheat is being grown for the first time on the 10-acre field with a special purpose. It will be used for the production of bread for celiac patients who need a gluten-free diet. Celiac disease is a chronic digestive and immune disorder that damages the small intestine.
Workers harvested the first crops on Wednesday on the field in Artuklu district of Mardin province, collecting some 650 kilograms (1433 pounds) of buckwheat in the trial cultivation. The program is jointly carried out by the municipality, local agriculture authority and agricultural research institutes. Mardin municipality will process the buckwheat in its facilities to make bread which will be distributed for free to patients in the province.
Mardin's Acting Mayor Mahmut Demirtaş told Anadolu Agency (AA) on Wednesday that the province hosted some 1,000 celiac patients and they decided to produce buckwheat in a pilot program at a farmer’s field. “This gave us a chance to see whether we can do it,” he said. Agriculture in Mardin is mainly concentrated on wheat and barley.
Buckwheat bread distribution will prioritize celiac patients who cannot afford it while Demirtaş says they hoped to increase the production and deliver them to the wider southeastern region. “Mardin has the advantage of shorter harvest term, just in 60 days than 90 days required elsewhere. We had suitable weather conditions, a good amount of sunlight,” he said.
Dr. Ahmet Güneş, an agricultural engineer from an agricultural research institute based in Turkey’s breadbasket Konya, said they have been working on increasing buckwheat production in the past two decades, noting that buckwheat production expanded in the world and Turkey, since 2014, has been producing its own buckwheat seeds.
Mehmet Keleş, the farmer who allocated his field for the production, said buckwheat was a crop that needs “less energy consumption” in irrigation. “I will plant it in 30 more acres and I hope other farmers in the region will join the production,” he said.
Celiac disease, which is defined as an immune reaction to eating gluten, a protein found in wheat, barley and rye has no known cure but symptoms can be managed and the intestines affected by the disease can be healed by a gluten-free diet. Symptoms of the disease may be insidious and triggered due to infections, stress, birth, pregnancy and surgery. The symptoms of celiac are mostly detected through tests and examinations performed on the digestive system and include nausea, vomiting, stomach ache, bloating, diarrhea, constipation, having too much gas and smelly and oily feces, among others.
In children, it usually manifests as malnutrition caused by inadequate absorption of nutrition and causes growth problems, slow growth, short stature, weight loss, anxiety and mood swings, delay in puberty, stains enamel and more. Other symptoms are anemia, iron, folic acid and vitamin B12 deficiency, bone pain, anxiety and depression, itchy rashes and blisters, fatigue, mouth sores, infertility, repeated miscarriages, menstrual cycle disruptions, epileptic seizures, paraesthesia in hands and feet, osteolysis, osteoporosis and headaches.
Turkey hosts more than 138,000 celiac patients. Though they consist only a small fraction of the total population, its true prevalence rate is difficult to determine as its symptoms are very diverse, resembling other diseases and sometimes, it does not have any symptoms at all.
Gluten-free foods became more available in Turkey in recent years but the high prices of those products remain a challenge for celiac diseases.
