Agriculture: Turkey; proposed bill threatens olive farmers

A draft law submitted to the Turkey’s Parliament pertaining to the official designation of olive fields could threaten the livelihood of 500,000 farm families in the country, as daily Today’s Zaman online reports quoting news outlets. The bill would make it so that olive fields less than two-and-a-half hectares in size would not officially be recognized as such. This in spite of a European Union code that says for a plot to be considered an olive field it must be at least one hectare. If passed, the bill would allow land that has been used for harvesting olives for hundreds of years to be opened up to energy and mining investment.