Istanbul Needs Local Bazaars Like New York

The Union Square Bazaar is close to the place in New York where we are staying. When I go to New York, the first thing that I do is to walk around the Union Square Bazaar and do some shopping. Yesterday, I bought fresh radish, organic baby spinach and arugula from the bazaar. The price for a bunch of turnips was $1.50. They sold spinach and arugula by weight.

In twenty-eight New York neighborhoods, bazaars are being setup. The biggest of these is the Union Square Bazaar, which runs on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. These bazaars are set up under the auspices of the New York government and are supervised by an organization known as the “Greenmarket-Farmers Market.” Arrangements of this sort also exist in other American cities.

In the bazaars, producers can only sell the products that they produce themselves. Merchants are not given permission to sell others' products. Every salesman has a document showing that they are a producer, and since organic products are in fashion these days, an organic producer license is also, in fact, required.

Land Should Not Be Covered in Concrete

The goal of these bazaars is to see that agricultural areas near the city continue to be used and that they are not used for anything besides agriculture production. If small producers located in the area around the city could not sell their products in these types of bazaars, then their production would not continue because it's impossible for small manufacturers to find middleman wholesalers and sell their goods in a wholesale food market.

In the New York neighborhood bazaars, every type of fresh fruit and vegetable, meat product, dairy product, homemade bread, flour product, egg, cheese, cut flower and potted plant are sold. These are grown in the small areas close to the city. There are also individuals selling handmade items. In Turkey we can see a similar example, which is quite successful: the Bey Bazaar. In this bazaar, the local government does not grant permission for the sale of products that were not produced in the Bey Bazaar.

The New York model is not only valid for Istanbul but for Turkey's other cities, as well. If local districts only gave permission for local merchants to sell self-produced goods, production within the agricultural areas surrounding the city would continue. The thing that makes our bazaars degenerate is their chaotic nature: merchants, middlemen and hired hands buy products from all over the place and sell them in the bazaar.

Let's not Kill Them, Let's Keep Them Alive

Our local governments in areas where bazaars are going to be forbidden have to revive them as producer bazaars. Let's take Istanbul as an example. In the areas surrounding Istanbul, on both the Asian and European sides, there are many villages. In these villages are producers who need a place to sell their goods. This is important for both the producers in the town and for the citizens of Istanbul.

Moreover, because the Organic Agriculture law singles out organic products from the Wholesale Food Law, producers can sell their products directly to consumers without going through the wholesale food market. These days, the opening of special bazaars for ecological and organic products is very common in every nation.

Supervised producer bazaars in which producers are only given permission to sell their own products are safe for consumers. Agricultural fields are not turned to concrete. Farmers are not destroyed. The areas around cities stay green. Natural life is protected. Regional and ecological products are the basic requirements of a healthy life. Producers’ ability to directly reach consumers gives both parties the chance to benefit.