It had supported this cooperative as a member of the Silifke Tekir Farm Agricultural Credit Cooperative, numbered 683. (30 June 1936)

Atatürk and Agricultural Credit Cooperatives

Atatürk engaged in intensive activities in the field of agricultural cooperatives in 1936. One of these is the organization of the farmers in the Tekir village of İçel, around the Tekir farm owned by Atatürk, by encouraging them to establish agricultural credit cooperatives. In order to establish an agricultural credit cooperative, the center of which is Tekir Farm, 36 producers from 10 villages submitted a signed petition to Silifke Ziraat Bank as founding members. Atatürk, who used the name Mustafa Kemal until the Surname Law was enacted, signed this petition by using the name Kemal Atatürk for the first time after he was given the surname Atatürk by a special law and as the founding member of the cooperative no. The text of the petition is as follows.

"We want to establish an agricultural credit cooperative in accordance with the Agricultural Credit Cooperatives Law No. 2836 in Silifke Ziraat Bank, to be the Central Tekir Farm and to include the villages of Arkaası, Persenti, Avşar, Karadereli, Tekir, Tekirkoyuncu, Türkmenli, TürkmenAşağı, Tozara.

If our wish is approved by your bank, we hope that the 6 copies of the main contract to be signed by the Ministry of Economy and the notary public registration procedures will be carried out.

(Necessary procedures were completed in July. Ulus Newspaper 14.7.1936)

The Minister of Economy of the time, Celal Bayar, sent a congratulatory telegram to Atatürk for his attempt to establish a cooperative, and Atatürk gave the following reply to this telegram.

"I am glad to learn that the transactions of Tekir cooperative, the first of the agricultural credit cooperatives, have ended. Thank you for your warm reminder of my membership in this cooperative as the number 1 member. We expect Agricultural Credit Cooperatives to cover the whole country with your success and efforts."

As it can be seen, Atatürk not only supported the cooperatives, but also became the founding partner of Tekir Cooperative, Turkey's first agricultural credit cooperative, which was established in Silifke Taşucunda Tekir Farm, and the Ankara Civil Servants Cooperative, which was mentioned before.

The name of this cooperative, which has been moved to Silifke today,  has become "Atatürk Tekir Agricultural Credit Cooperative"  .  On the other hand, the 30th of June, when the establishment petition is submitted, has been celebrated as the "Cooperatives Day" by various cooperative organizations in recent years  .

Upon the enactment of the laws numbered 2834 and 2836 on agricultural sales and agricultural credit cooperatives and the rapid establishment of cooperatives in the country, Atatürk spoke as follows while opening the Turkish Grand National Assembly on 1 November 1936.

"The cooperative organization has been loved everywhere. We see it as possible to benefit from cooperatives for credit and sales, as well as for teaching and making use of production tools."

Agricultural industry will be the subject that we will be dealing with in particular. In the meantime, we attach special importance to dairy and the dairy industry. Efforts will be made to establish factories that will meet the needs of our cities and towns for clean and cheap milk products, and to establish cooperatives that will harmoniously evaluate the milk in the villages and facilitate sales.

As explained above, Atatürk's activities for the development of rural and urban cooperatives in our country were quite intense. Throughout his life, he argued that cooperatives should be used as an important tool in economic development and in raising the welfare level of producers, and he personally worked for the enactment of cooperative laws and the establishment of cooperatives.

Atatürk has always praised cooperatives. In a speech he gave in Kastamonu in 1925, he said:

"Because I am a farmer too, I know that agriculture cannot be done without machinery, manual labor is difficult, unite, buy machinery together."

Source:  www.tarimkredi.org.tr