75 percent of the world’s hazelnuts are grown in Türkiye’s Black Sea coast. Up in the region’s rugged hills, hazelnut production is still mostly manual and heavily reliant on seasonal hired labor. Each harvest season (August – September), Turkish migrant workers from the poverty-stricken South-East are employed to pick the hazelnuts. Due to their economic situation, parents are often left with little choice but to bring their whole family to the farms, where children are routinely tasked with carrying heavy loads up and down steep hillsides in blistering hot weather.
To end child labor on hazelnut farms, the Rainforest Alliance has built a broad partnership of farmers, parents, teachers, hazelnut companies, NGOs, and local government.