Investigation of local fig variety production with some socio-economic indicators: The case of Abbas fig

Abstract

In this study, it was aimed to investigate the cultivation of Abbas fig, which is a local variety in Kahramanmaraş province, with some socio-economic indicators. In the study, the primary data were obtained from a face-to-face survey conducted with 54 fig producers determined by simple random sampling method. Descriptive statistics were used in the evaluation of the data obtained from the surveys. As a result of analysis, 16.67% of the producers are illiterate, 16.67% are literate, 64.81% are primary school graduates and 1.85% are high school graduates. Since the level of education of the producers is low, it's determined that they don't have knowledge about modern farming and use traditional methods. While 9.3% of the producers are member of producer cooperatives, 3.7% of the producers are member of associations, thus revealing the fact that organizing in the region is not the case. The share of Abbas fig production in agricultural gross production value was determined as 79.71%. All of the producers were working with the merchants on the marketing channel and %15.1 were found to offer their products to local markets on their own. The average price of fresh figs for producers is 3.04 TL kg-1 . The result is that the price maker is merchants and the reason is the producers are not organized. It will be useful to conduct publication studies on fig cultivation with the knowledge that producers are warmly interested in publishing studies.

Keywords

• Abbas
• Fig
• Kahramanmaraş
• Socio-economic
• Socio-economic indicators