The bitter song of the hazelnut

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 19 September 2019

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Every August tens of thousands of Kurdish migrant workers, including children, toil long hours for a pittance in the mountains of northern Turkey picking hazelnuts for the spreads and chocolate bars the world adores. Turkey provides 70% of all hazelnut supplies – and the biggest buyer is Ferrero, maker of Nutella and Kinder Bueno. The confectionery giant says it’s committed to ethical sourcing, and aiming for its hazelnuts to be 100% traceable next year. But how is that possible in Turkey, with its half a million tiny family orchards, where child labour is rife? Tim Whewell investigates Ferrero’s complex supply chain and finds that while hazelnuts are celebrated in Turkish culture and song, it’s a sector where workers and farmers feel increasingly unhappy and reform is very hard to achieve.

(Image: Hazelnut picker on Turkey’s Black Sea coast. Credit: Reyan Tuvi)

Transcript

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0:00.0	So we just ask you a personal question to start with.
0:03.0	What do hazelnuts mean to you?
0:07.0	If I say hazelnut, what do you think of?
0:10.0	Yes, hazelnuts means everything for me. I grow up with hazelnut. I get educated with hazelnut. I get married with hazelnut.
0:21.0	And finally I will die with hazelnut and finally I will die with hazelnut.
0:24.0	So you love hazelnuts?
0:29.0	Yes.
0:30.0	Yes.
0:31.0	We will love hazelnuts and Hazenas is very important for Biloxi since a long time in
0:38.4	Ordup province. And that's the sound of the father, he's got a kind of crook and he's shaking the tree to bring off the final nuts that are still clinging to the branches.
1:01.0	Every time he shakes like that is the whole shower of nuts come down. We have a very emotional attachment to our or
1:17.0	a very emotional attachment to our orchards.
1:22.0	You... to our orchards. You fall in love, like you fall in love with a woman. You fall in love with the hazelnut trees. We have always met our lovers under the hazelnut trees.
1:38.0	Welcome to assignment on the BBC World Service. I'm Tim Huell in the rainy
1:46.3	mountains on the northern Black Sea coast of Turkey, source of 70% of all hazelnuts.
1:52.1	We depend on Turkish hazelnuts for our chocolate and nut bars
1:56.2	and for the world's favourite spread, Nutella. Without them, the local economy would collapse.
2:03.0	No wonder they're celebrated in song.
2:06.0	But first, someone has to pick them.
2:14.0	When you think about hazelnuts, what do you think of?
2:18.0	What does hazelnut mean to you?
2:20.0	When we say hazelnut to my understanding it comes misery. Tough work and being a worker comes
	...

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