Dreaming Of A Cooperative for Every Neighborhood…

Founded with the slogan of "Good, Clean, Fair Food", Yeryüzü Cooperative offers a tangible and visible alternative to food crisis which has frequently been discussed during the pandemic with its first branch in Bostancı. 

I’ve visited Yeryüzü Cooperative, which was opened when the first Coronavirus cases were seen among Turkey, and listened to its story from its founders and volunteers. The cooperative where all processes are carried out with participation and solidarity, continues its activities in Bostancı as a proof that reaching safe and healthy food in cities and efforts in the field of ecology is not an utopia.

The co-founder of the cooperative Akif Pamuk states that their founding story had begun with the food community experiences of friends who came together in the city. Pamuk stated that the Yeryüzü Association makes purchases from the producers as food communities and distributes them once a month, thus supporting both small producers and meeting the clean food needs of their own homes and says: “As more people started to come, we began to think about how to carry out the process. We were aiming to minimize alienation towards food. In the meantime, we wanted to produce a more horizontal, hierarchical, participatory format. As food communities grew, we divided them into districts. The process started to turn into a structure where each neighborhood would supply its own food from small producers. It was a process where we discussed many things together. We organized food workshops and opened the food issue up for discussion from different aspects. Mechanisms were created to reach food not monthly, but daily. And thus, Yeryüzü Cooperative was founded. At the end of the day, the experience of the food communities had turned into Yeryüzü Cooperative. However, food communities keep on working.”

 “The Epidemic Has Revealed the Importance of What We’ve Always Said”

Pamuk who states that the importance of their work for years has been realized more during the epidemic as the people who work in the field of ecology and those who work in Yeryüzü Association says: “For years we have struggled for climate crisis, real food, local and ancestral seeds, urban gardens and orchards. We have repeatedly said that the small producers are important and that they must be protected. Everything came true today. The epidemic has shown this to us. In fact, people have forgotten everything they are capable of doing. They cannot make bread, grow orchards or sustain their own lives. We have seen that for the first time, the subjects who provided themselves with the money they earned by working in professional jobs have become lonelier and confronted with the struggle for hunger and plenty between four walls. While everything was fine and it didn’t matter who produced the tomatoes in the markets, during the pandemic process people started to wonder how they are produced and how they got there.”

“It is a Right to Access Real Food in the Cities”

Stating that for Yeryüzü Cooperative, people living in the city to access real food is a right, Pamuk said: “We are talking about a community that is doing what should normally be done. We are trying to build it, our doors are open to everyone, those who want can come and share can deliver their products or buy their food. This place has made us experience that collaboration and solidarity still survive. Our friends who get off work, voluntarily bring the needs of individuals over the age of 65, who are forbidden to go out after 6 pm. There are those who voluntarily come here to peel vegetables or carry a sack of potatoes.”

Stating that they are reproducers rather than consumers and that they care about the sustainability of small producers in local and villages, Pamuk says: “We have a rice producer from Samsun. It is important for him to know that there is a mechanism in which he can deliver his products to the city. Yeryüzü Cooperative exists to stand by those who produce real food.” Expressing that they have the dream of opening a cooperative in each neighborhood, Pamuk says: “The most natural right of every neighborhood is to reach real food. It is also a fundamental right for every producer that produces natural agriculture with local seeds to deliver their products to people living in cities.”

Click here (tıklayınız.) for the address of Yeryüzü Cooperative located at the Bostancı subway station exit.