A Specific Example of Products with Geographical Indication in Turkey: Anamur Banana

A Geographical Indication is taking a product specific to a region, area, or country with one or more unique features under protection and branding it. The Geographical Indication application includes 2 different indication applications. These are the Designation of Origin and Protected Geographical Indications. Within the scope of the protected geographical indications, in addition to the fact that a product must be specific to a region, basin, city, or country with designated boundaries, at least a specific feature, reputation, or any introductory aspect of the product must originate from the place in question. The designation of origin is the product expressed by the region, basin, town, country or region where it originates from as a whole. In other words, it refers to products which are completely specific to a particular place and which are not found or available elsewhere. As a matter of fact, Anamur Banana is a product with the Designation of Origin. Turkey, both with its location and geographical features, as well as its deep-rooted culture, has very great potential in terms of geographical indications. Thanks to these features, it is likely that the number of geographical indications in our county, which is yet 336, will increase even further in the future. When Anamur Banana, which has its own unique taste and appearance, was included in the geographical indication in 2002, the status of the product changed and it was branded. At this point, what kind of change or transformation has occurred in Anamur Banana since it was included in the geographical indication? Has there been any reflection or contribution of the application to the banana cultivation of the region from various aspects? In this study, it is aimed to both investigate the functioning of the geographical indication system and to reveal what kind of a process is experienced locally and generally after a product is included in the geographical indication.

Keywords

Anamur Banana, Geographical Indications, Cultural Geography, Anamur, Mersin.