After the announcement of Greenhouse Finance Loan Program by the Minister of Treasury and Finance Berat Albayrak as a response to the increasing fruit and vegetable prices, the greenhouse loans have tripled the sum of all greenhouse loans in the last 3 years. As a part of the program, 6.905 growers have applied for loans and a total of 300.000 USD worth of loans were used by the growers for new greenhouse construction.
500 of the applicants were new growers whereas the rest were current growers applying to expand their business and to modernize their production facilities. The most common product for greenhouse loan application was tomatoes. Current estimates indicate that there will be an additional 252.000 tons of tomatoes added to the national supply thanks to these loans. Tomato is followed by 60.000 tons of green pepper, 40.000 tons of bananas and 2.500 tons of cucumber. The Minister had underlined the importance of greenhouse production to prevent price fluctuation of fruit and vegetables at the market place.
Antalya currently tops Turkey as the city with the most greenhouses. Almost 32 % of the greenhouses in Turkey are located in Antalya. Geothermal greenhouses are becoming popular in Turkey as well. The applicants were from all parts of Turkey, demonstrating that greenhouse production is slowly spreading to all parts of the country.
Current loans will be repaid in 7 years with the repayments starting after 2 years. The loans cover new greenhouse construction and modernization of existing greenhouses up to 75 % of all costs with an interest rate of 8.25 %.
Source: Hurriyet