Socio-economic Impact of Organic Farming in Rural Turkey: the Case of Rapunzel Turkey Project

In recent years, organic farming in the Mediterranean has shown an important growth. In Turkey, organic production started with the demand of European companies interested in traditional Turkish export products. Rapunzel, a German company, has been working on organic projects in Turkey since 1985. Relating to the increasing capacity and the intensive demands for healthy food, in 1989 Rapunzel established in Izmir the first official office with 3 member staff. Today Rapunzel Turkey Project has got more than 870 contracted farmers and 50 member staff, producing more than 70 product categories. In some villages the constructive collaboration between Rapunzel and the organic farmers had the effect to transform the entire village from conventional to organic and all people living in them are involved in activities in order to support, in a conscious way, organic farming.Using a qualitative ethnographic approach with in-depth face-to-face interviews the case study aims: to assess the factors of success of the company, both internal and external; to scrutinize the actual problems faced in the past; to build up its network of relations among the different stakeholders involved; to investigate its impact on the rural development of the region and its influence in the evolution of the domestic market, to identify elements of replicability for similar initiatives in other Mediterranean countrie