To Safeguard Their Crop, Growers Are Now Standing Guard With Rifles Day and Night.

Farmers in Manisa, Turkey, have begun round-the-clock armed patrols of their vineyards to protect a year's worth of labor — world-famous Sultaniye seedless grapes — from thieves and wild animals during the drying process. The grapes, harvested from local vineyards, are laid out on long drying racks in the fields, where they must remain exposed to the sun for about two weeks. To safeguard their crop, growers are now standing guard with rifles day and night.

Aydoğan Okur, chairman of the Saruhanlı Chamber of Agriculture, highlighted the difficulty of the process and the producers' struggle. "We care for them for 11 months. We pick the grapes off the ground.

We even collect the fallen ones one by one. We bring them here with our labor, scraping with our fingernails. There is no luxury of this going to someone else in return for our effort.

We make huge expenses. Grapes don't make money anyway. We have to wait.

If we don't, either people will steal or animals will get in. As you know, animals are quite dense here," he said. Okur also addressed rising costs and expectations for a base price.

"We are forced to stand guard with rifles to protect our products. We expect TMO (the Turkish Grain Board) to step in and buy the grapes from us. At the very least, this grape needs to be removed from the market at no less than 120 liras right now.

Last year we sold grapes for between 110 and 120 liras. Since last year, costs have risen by 40-50 percent. Our grape price has fallen from 120 liras to 75 liras," he stated.

Halil Kolcu, a producer from the Adiloba neighborhood in Saruhanlı district, described the sleepless nights and expectations. "We are watching our drying racks. We worked for this product nonstop, day and night, for a year, and we are fighting so they don't steal it.

During the day we work in the vineyard until evening, and at night we sleep in the racks until morning. Farming is hard. We expect a very good price," he said. Millions of liras worth of Sultaniye seedless grapes, collected with great effort in the Manisa Plain and left to dry, are being protected by producers standing guard with rifles against the threat of theft and wild animals.