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YÜKSEL

TOHUM

Ofcourse, you are one of the most well-known
companies in the sector, but can you briefly tell
us the story of Yüksel Tohum’s beginnings?
Until 1985, seed imports, exports and pricing
policies in Turkey were carried out entirely by the
public sector. When the sectors were liberalized
during the first period of Turgut Özal’s government,
the private sector started to invest in the seed sector
for the first time. In short, the milestone of private
sector seed production in Turkey was 1985. After the
legislative barrier was lifted, private seed companies
started to be established rapidly after this date. The
companies first started with the import and sale
of seeds to a very large extent. As Yüksel Tohum,
we started directly with vegetable breeding and
production.
The Yüksel family has been engaged in greenhouse
vegetable production since the first greenhouse
farming in Turkey. After graduating from university
and completing my master’s degree in vegetable
breeding, I founded Yüksel Tohum in 1990 and
started my commercial life by trading seeds,
pesticides and fertilizers. In the same year, I started
vegetable breeding in the greenhouses belonging
to our family. We have continuously invested the
money we earned from our pesticide dealership
business activity in seed R&D and production
infrastructure. In 1994, I made my brothers partners
and we have been growing as a family company
since then and we continue our seed production We have become
activities. Yüksel Tohum has established Turkey’s Turkey’s first R&D
largest strategic R&D and production infrastructure center in the agriculture
and seed sector,
in vegetable (tomato, pepper, eggplant, cucumber, exporting seeds to 78
melon, watermelon, squash, lettuce, bean, sweet countries and employing
corn) and potato seed production. We have become more than 1,200 people
Turkey’s first R&D center in the agriculture and in our domestic and
seed sector, exporting seeds to 78 countries and overseas companies.
employing more than 1,200 people in our domestic
and overseas companies.
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