Local women in southern Turkey join cracked wheat production
A women's cooperative in the Mediterranean province of Mersin have taken part in the processing of wheat berries that were produced by local farmers. Noting the ancestral significance of grains for the region, the members of the coop processed the berries into cracked wheat, a common ingredient used in Turkish cuisine.
Duvar English
Women of the Mersin Municipality's cooperative joined in on production of packaged cracked wheat, a grain that's used in many Turkish dishes.
The Mersin Women's Initiative, Production and Management Cooperative took over wheat berries from local farmers, boiled them, left them out in the sun to dry and then beat them to form finer grains.
"The farmers are incentivized by the municipality to plant wheat. We wanted help make this project sustainable," said the cooperative's chairwoman Meral Seçer.
Eylem Bozdoğan, one of the co-founders of the cooperative, noted that the grain has an ancestral significance for the area.
"Each year in August we boil our wheat. We do it in a meticulous and sanitary method that we learned from our grandmothers," a member of the cooperative said.