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After the milking process, the villagers bring their milk to the collection center of Tire Milk Cooperative.
The collected milk is controlled meticulously and loaded to the tanks.
Then, these milk tanks are transferred to the tank cars and taken to the factory of the cooperative.
This ritual is repeated every day in 63 villages around Tire, a town near the Aegean city of Izmir.
The 1.870 villagers who are members sell their milk to the cooperative on a daily basis.
The cooperative receives an average of 150 tons of milk per day and produces bottled milk,
ayran (a salty yogurt drink), cheese and yoghurt in the factory.
Tire Milk Cooperative was established in 1967 by 5 villagers.
Their purpose was to increase the value of milk produced by villagers in Tire and the surrounding counties
where agriculture and animal husbandry are the main source of income.
After working on a small scale for 10 years, the cooperative was reorganized.
Today, Tire Milk Cooperative has 1.870 members in 63 villages.
Tire Milk Cooperative is the first producer of organic pasteurized milk
in Turkey and sells organic cheese, ayran and meat products in three shops
of the cooperative and two supermarket chains in İzmir.
The big milk companies in the region also buy their milk from the cooperative.
As villagers cooperate in the milk production and selling processes,
they aim to increase the value of the milk.
The villagers were struggling against poverty in the region 10 years ago, but today thanks to the cooperative
their monthly income starts from 1.500 Turkish Liras in proportion to the number of cows.
As a result of its successful initiatives, Tire Milk Cooperative was selected
as the best rural development model of the world by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
- The Tire Milk Cooperative is a rural development model which was designed according to Turkey's conditions.
Our purpose is to maintain the continuity of small-scale producers
and to prevent rural-urban migration.
Unfortunately small-scale producers were disappearing one by one.
Instead of creating new big producers, we help the small-scale ones develop and work together. We achieved it
and we want this to be taken to account in new policies going forward.
As the members of the cooperative, the villagers supply the feed and farm machinery which is necessary for agricultural production.
They also purchase oil for the tractors at a discounted rate from the cooperative's gas station.
- Migration from rural areas to the cities has increased in our country.
The reason behind this is not the demand of cities but the poor conditions of the villages.
As the villagers cannot earn money anymore, they leave their hometowns.
If Tire Milk Cooperative hadn't existed, most of the population in these villages would have left.
Our purpose is to stop the rural-urban migration and help these people continue the production in their villages.
As Tire Milk Cooperative, by coming together with villagers we not only
continue to produce but we also make our producers content.
They worked, produced and earned together.
First they trusted themselves, and then each other.
They made a difference by creating a successful cooperative model in Turkey
to address the challenges of the agriculture and animal husbandry sector.