Adana

Adana exists because the Çukurova plain exists. This sediment delta—deposited over millennia where the Seyhan and Ceyhan rivers meet the Mediterranean—created Turkey's most fertile agricultural zone, and agricultural surplus funds cities. When cotton cultivation exploded in the 1860s during America's Civil War shortage, Adana transformed from regional market town to global commodity hub. The Adana Chamber of Commerce, founded in 1894 specifically to organize cotton trade, remains one of Turkey's oldest.

The agricultural-industrial coupling followed predictable patterns. Cotton grows; cotton must be processed; processing requires workers; workers need food, housing, services. By 2024, food processing and metal fabrication comprise 27% of Adana's manufacturing, but the Commodity Exchange founded in 1913 still organizes the agricultural trade that underlies everything. The Chamber now counts 25,000 member companies—evidence that agricultural foundation scales into diversified economy.

Climate constraints now stress the system that climate created. The Çukurova plain's fertility depends on water the mountains provide, and those flows are changing. Turkey's 2024 agricultural output showed 5% decline in cereals while vegetables rose 5.6%—a shift toward crops requiring less water that Adana's farmers navigate in real-time.

**By 2026**, Adana will test whether agricultural heritage enables or constrains adaptation. The November 2025 Agriculture Fair—its 18th iteration—will showcase greenhouse technology and precision irrigation that could decouple production from rainfall. Whether Adana's farmers adopt these tools fast enough to maintain regional primacy, or whether changing climate redistributes Turkish agriculture's center of gravity, depends on capital access and generational transition in an aging farming population.