Within the scope of the KOP Agricultural Training and Extension Project, training on “Apple Harvesting” was provided to foremen and harvest workers in Karaman Province, aiming to minimize production losses during the apple harvest.

The project aims to examine, through a holistic approach, the components that will enhance the interaction of the KOP Region provinces with nearby industrial, commercial, and financial centers, and to set forth a strategic roadmap that will support sustainable development. In addition, the project seeks to identify the sub-investment needs that will support this roadmap and to reveal the additional capacities to be created by these infrastructural opportunities.

The beneficiary of the project, S.S. Demiryurt Agricultural Development Cooperative, was established in 2005 in Demiryurt Village with 30 members. At that time, the cooperative benefited from the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry’s 30x10 investment program (10 cattle for each of 30 families) and began production in a shared barn.

Within the scope of the project, as part of the training and extension activities aimed at generating income, with the objectives of instilling social awareness in women who are engaged in economic activity within the family and are categorized as unpaid family workers through the trainings provided, ensuring their participation in the cooperative, and providing them with a profession to sustain their own lives, trees are processed to make walking sticks, and stonework with local motifs is applied onto the walking sticks.

Among the agricultural products produced in Aksaray, the most widely cultivated and preferred for snacks are sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds. With the integrated seed facility established through this project, the products are collected directly from farmers with minimal handling. Inside the facility, the products are dried at the correct temperature in a drying machine, ensuring that their color and quality remain unchanged. This allows the processing, which would normally take weeks, to be completed in the shortest possible time. Farmers are able to sell their products shortly after harvest, increasing the market value of their produce.

With this project, in the province of Karaman, where livestock activities and movements are intensive, it is planned to establish a new livestock market in place of the existing and unhealthy market, within the framework of the “Regulation on Licensing and Inspection Procedures for Livestock Sales Places”, in order to ensure animal health and disease control and to develop the trade of livestock, meat, and milk.