Hi!. I am Mehmet Coka. We are dealing on almond growing since 2009. We have builded our first farm in May 2010. I am writing our experience in Turkish for three years. Although my English is not enough to write, to improve it and to share our experience I decided to write in English. I am not planing to translate the previous writings in my Turkish blog (www.turatarimbadembahcesi.com) but, I can mention some of them.
I am not an Agricultural engineer or I don't have an agricultural based life. I live in Istanbul and I studied political science in EMU. I worked abroad and later on come back and deal with trade.What I am ? I can say that I am an entrepreneur.
I hope I keep write our experiences.
Why I wanted to write our experiences?
When you check the net about almond production or walnut production in Turkish, you meet wrong and funny informations.
Efficiency ratios, costs all crazy. There is a slogan on the net ''Care almond trees 3 years, they cares you lifetime''
Feasibility information for yields are unbelievable. These sites claim they receive 2 kg (4,4 Pound) almond kernel from each trees in third years.
Price is Approximately 10 usd/kg. I have never seen in any orchard that have reached this ratio in Turkey.
We have 4000 trees and we have not received 8000 kg almond kernel in third year. Revenue should be 80.000 USD. So good to be truth. Funny part is that, people lives around here, believe. So, I decided that someone should write the truths.
If they could be right, Turkey would be almond, walnut forest .. Maybe second Amazon forests would be located in Turkey.
I followed and met some of these guys that gives these informations on the net. And I asked them, if its so profitable, why do you sell young trees, make your own orchard and count your money with machine.:-))
Answers were funny also: ''We love to produce young trees''. Like a joke. I am not telling to you a joke. They produce young trees, sells, consulting, you spend money.. They don't know really about almond, because they never have an orchard. They are great in producing young trees but growing… they don't know. Their consultancy is …. you know. I don't say all nursery owners like that, there are people that have good know how for producing. Point is that, there is no reliable shared records.
Thats all for today.. I just wanted started to write.. I'll check later.
