Covid-19 outbreak increased interest in urban agriculture and organic agriculture

As the body immunity and immune system gained importance once again with the Covid-19 pandemic, Büyükçekmece Municipality took essential steps on “Urban Agriculture and Organic Agriculture” and started to give training on scientific agriculture techniques for the citizens of the city. The certificates of the trainees who completed the “Urban Agriculture and Beekeeping Training” courses, which were organized by Büyükçekmece Municipality, Yeditepe University, and Namık Kemal University, were presented at a ceremony. At the ceremony, the “Balcony Garden Vegetable Set” consisting of vegetable seeds was gifted to the citizens. 

People will be able to produce organic vegetables at home

Declaring 2020 as the year of agriculture, Büyükçekmece Municipality started to give training to the citizens on urban agriculture and organic agriculture. As the Covid-19 pandemic spread to the whole world, more citizens began to attend the training. Organized online by the Directorate of Agricultural Services, the “Agriculture Academy Urban Agriculture and Beekeeping Training” attracted significant attention from the city's citizens. Certificates were presented at a ceremony held according to the social distance rules to the trainees who completed the courses. In addition, the citizens who attended the ceremony were gifted with a “Balcony Garden Vegetable Set.” As the set includes seeds, citizens will produce organic vegetables such as lettuce, parsley, onion, and garlic, which strengthen the immune system in their balconies or gardens. 

“In a country without agriculture, people cannot develop themselves”

 Büyükçekmece Vice Mayor Ömer Kazancı made a statement about the Agriculture Academy Urban Agriculture and Beekeeping Training courses, “As Büyükçekmece Municipality, our Mayor Dr. Hasan Akgün declared 2020 as the year agriculture. Following this declaration, the Directorate of Agricultural Services was established in our Municipality. The Directorate of Agricultural Services did some serious studies since it is founded. In the end, we decided to collaborate with Yeditepe University and Namık Kemal University to provide training to our citizens. Today, we will give the certificates to the successful trainees of our urban agriculture and beekeeping training. Agriculture is essential; it should be valued highly. Because life showed us that without agriculture the development is impossible. The Metropolitan Municipality has recently started to protect the agricultural areas in Istanbul and provide seed and seedling support to the farmers and producers in the city. In this context, we, as the Büyükçekmece Municipality, started an agricultural cooperative process on the lands owned by our municipality to do agricultural works on them. Especially we prioritize women farmers to be a member of this cooperative. We aim to make these lands participate in the production process through this cooperative. 

Covid-19 pandemic showed us that agriculture is vital

The views of the trainees who completed the Büyükçekmece Municipality Agriculture Academy Urban Agriculture and Beekeeping Training are as follows:

Hale Türkbaş: I’m a Büyükçekmece resident and a communication faculty graduate. In 2019 I graduated from agricultural technology. I’m also on the board of management of the Environment Protection Association. Since I know how important agriculture is and that the first step for this job is training, I gladly attended this training. It was very successful. Thank you very much, but it was not enough. We are waiting for more. 

Deniz Çapanoğlu Uyan: It makes me happy that our Mayor is very responsive on this issue. I had attended previous training as well. This training is precious to us. Because the pandemic showed us that we are going to need agriculture so much in the following days. In this regard, I would like to thank you for the efforts of both our Mayor and Director of Agricultural Services.