In Edirne's Meriç district, located in northwestern Türkiye, peanuts produced from heirloom seeds are processed by a cooperative established by female entrepreneurs and distributed throughout Türkiye via the provincial directorate.
At the agricultural development cooperative set up in Alibey village with the support of the directorate, female producers create products such as roasted peanuts, cookies, paste, cream and oil from the geographically marked Meriç peanuts.
Products made from heirloom peanuts are sent to markets and e-commerce platforms under the "Edirne Yöresel" brand, established by the Edirne Governorship to promote and effectively market local products.
Governor Yunus Sezer visited the cooperative, toured the production facility and received information about the operations.
Sezer stated that peanut production in the region has increased each year. He emphasized the importance of peanuts, saying: "Significant work has been done in the past seven to eight months to support peanut production, as well as to brand and market it. New facilities have been established under the leadership of our governorship to produce products from Meriç peanuts."
Sezer added: "Our goal is to transition to a contract farming model, which we started this year. Last year, there were about 500 decares of planting, and this year it has increased to 1,800 decares."
"Currently, Meriç peanuts are sold in all Tarım Kredi Cooperative Markets. This is a peanut grown from heirloom seeds, with four peanuts coming from one pod. It is a very important product due to its taste, aroma and oil content. We are sending it to all our markets and are negotiating with other chain markets."
Entrepreneur Yasemin Demirel mentioned that 12 women are employed at the cooperative.
"We are growing peanuts from 120-year-old heirloom seeds. We sell products like peanut butter, cookies and cream through the governorship. We have started earning money, our government is supporting us, and we hope it continues," she said.
Mübeyyen Zorlutuna also noted that the income from sales of their products prepared according to demand contributes to their family finances.
