A community experience in Diyarbakir
After both Bişar İçli' and Zeki Kanay lost their posts at the municipality and university because of their activist work, they decided to retreat to the countryside to engage in agriculture. They use local seeds for all the produce. With great enthusiasm Bişar İçli and Zeki Kanay greened their place. They are surrounded by melons, watermelons, zucchinis, eggplants, tomatoes and pepper beds with sunflowers. İçli emphasizes that it is actually a communal effort with the help of many volunteers.
The farm is located in Diyarbakır, where a refugee camp was created after ISIS attacked Shengal. “It was necessary to do something with the people in the Shengal camp. We started to make a garden with them. We built 185 orchards in two and a half years,” says İçli.
Bişar İçli said, “Everything you see here has been given to us for support or in exchange. We didn't pay for anything. “We went to the villages and bought pink tomato seeds and gave something else in return,” he says. Their actions oppose both biological warfare and the food crisis. “The company brings seeds into the country and the farmer is forced to use this seed. The farmer who buys the seed is forced to take a few pesticides to get sufficient yield from this seed...Our main concern is to obtain seeds and spread it. We advocate a subsistence economy.
