Century-old olive trees, the main source of livelihood for many peasants in the area, are to be felled for the construction of a geothermal power plant in the village of Orhanlı in the Seferihisar district of Izmir.

While the first construction works for the power plant complex have started, villagers gathered at the olive trees that have been felled so far and protested. In doing so, they also denounced the fact that the company building and operating the power plant is able to oppose with impunity a successful lawsuit filed by 99 peasants, at the end of which it was forbidden by the court to continue with the project, and thus destroys the olive cultivation on which the village of Orhanlı lives.

On 1st of July, also, a law of the Ministry of Agriculture came into force in Turkey, prohibiting the sale of tobacco without a special sales certificate. For small peasants who are unable to obtain this certificate, which is of course designed for the industrial production of landowners and agricultural companies, the new law threatens their subsistence. Some tobacco farmers joined together on 12th of July and blocked a highway in Adiyaman, where ten of them were arrested. The " evidence of crime" used here was membership in a WhatsApp group "Tobacco Law", which the peasants had created in order to organise themselves. On suspicion of having committed a "strong crime", they were indicted. This shows how afraid the old Turkish state is of peasants organising themselves.