JINHA

RIHA – Women, who rent fields and grow vegetables in Birecik, put communal production first and they play role from growing vegetable to selling them.

Women, who rent fields and grow vegetables in the Şahinler (Tıbıl) village of Urfa’s Birecik district, emphasize the communal production. The women grow organic garlic, peppers, eggplants, tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, parsley and mint in these fields by sharing the works. First, the women’s needs have been met with these vegetables, and then they sell the rest of the vegetables.

Edibe Şahin is one of these women and she said they had more difficulty in hot weather. Edibe said, “We put food and our needs in our bag in the morning. We go to the fields by taking the tractor. We sing Kurdish songs along the way. We work in the cool hours of the day and we have a break at noon for one hour. Our works end with the sunset.”

Edibe told us that women are at every stage of the growing of vegetables. “If the harvest is much more in the season, female agricultural laborers come to work with us. We prepare canned vegetables and dried vegetables and the rest of vegetables are sold in markets.”

(htk/va/gc)