Doğan Holding Chair Begümhan Doğan Faralyalı speaks at the World Organic Congress

“Doğan Organik is not a commercial project; it’s an undertaking in social responsibility”

Doğan Holding was the main sponsor of the 18th World Organic Congress staged in Istanbul by the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements. Pioneering organic animal husbandry in Turkey with the Doğan Organik Kelkit Initiative, Doğan Holding aims to contribute to the sharing of international experience in the areas of agricultural development, food safety, and sustainability by sponsoring this congress.

In her speech at the opening ceremony of the congress, Doğan Holding Chair Begümhan Doğan Faralyalı underlined the fact that Doğan Organik was an undertaking in social responsibility rather than a commercial project, saying,

“Launched in 2002 in Kelkit, our hometown in the Eastern Black Sea region of Turkey, this project is a gift by my father Aydın Doğan, the honorary chairman of our holding, to the land he was born and raised in. The goal of Doğan Organik is to ensure the sustainable development of Kelkit and its environs. For this purpose, we created an organic model of farming and animal husbandry to serve as a pioneer for the rest of Turkey. The model that works successfully in Kelkit has become one that has proved its sustainability for agricultural economy today. It helped make an organic agriculture hub of not just Kelkit but the entire Eastern Black Sea region. In the organic production model we started in Kelkit, we adhere to a sustainable production concept that’s cleansed of chemicals and careful about the well-being of livestock, working with a peace of mind that comes from knowing we’ll be leaving fertile lands to posterity.”

Doğan Organik is the largest organic milk producer in Turkey and in the region

The Doğan Organik Kelkit Initiative supports contracted farmer families in such areas as animal feed supply and investment while providing them with training. Operating with 60 employees and 100 farmer families under contract, Doğan Organik produces nearly 12,000 tons of milk from 1,400 heads of certified organic livestock.

Noting that Doğan Organik had become the largest organic milk producer in Turkey, Faralyalı said, “The brilliant results Doğan Organik achieved in 12 years together with its contracted farmers are a source of pride for Doğan Holding and the townspeople of Kelkit.”

Doğan Organik awarded in Europe

Pointing out that Doğan Organik was a source of pride not only for its operational success but also for its commitment to social responsibility, Faralyalı concluded,

“With the Doğan Organik Ürünler model, we won the top award in the SME category in the European Corporate Social Responsibility Awards Scheme run by CSR Europe. We also participated in the European CSR Award Best Practice Exchange Forum staged by Business in the Community in London where we shared the details of the project with corporate social responsibility professionals and representatives of the business world. The project’s becoming an exemplary model in the international arena is one of the key indicators

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