Abstract
Today, about 21% of the Turkey’s population lives engage plant production and animal husbandry; the most crucial aspect of livestock breeding is producing forage crops. Since 2000, growers in Turkey have been subsidized and encouraged to increase both their production and quality of forage crops. However, despite all this support and assistance, desired production levels have not yet been achieved. Therefore, it is equally crucial analyze the effects of factors other than the subsidies provided on forage crops production. This study aims to determine the socio-economic factors that affect sustainable forage crops production. The study was carried out in the province of Kayseri, specifically in 11 villages where both plant production and animal husbandry systems are common. The subjects of the study were selected through the Random Sampling Method and data was collected by surveying 310 forage crops growers. To identify dependency relationships between qualitative variables used mainly based on a statistical chi-square statistic. According to the analysis results, 35.5% of growers found forage crops production sustainable, whereas 64.5% of them thought that it was unsustainable. When both socio-economic variables and the answers to survey questions were taken into account, variables such as grower’s age, education level, income level, land for fodder crops, livestock count, recent increase in livestock count, subsidies, and the conditions under which sustainability may be maintained were found to be related to forage crops production sustainability.
Highlights
Forage crops production is the backbone of livestock breeding
This study reveals that forage crops production closely depends on growers’ income level, whether they own forage crop lands, livestock count, whether they receive subsidies, the conditions under which sustainability is maintained, and the effects of subsidies on livestock count
This study indicates that the increase in livestock count due to subsidies given is the most important factor for ensuring sustainability
Summary
Forage crops production is the backbone of livestock breeding. The fact that forage plants are rich in minerals and vitamins makes them enhance livestock productivity and produce quality foods from animals (Peters et al 2001). The amount of coarse fodder produced in Turkey is far outstripped by the feed demands of the existing livestock population (Yolcu & Tan 2008; Temel & Şahin 2011). In Turkey, forage crops are grown in as much as 2.689,253 hectares. Forage crops that are grown most often in Turkey are corn (976.698 ha), clover (676.172 ha) and common vetch (669.432 ha). The first reason for this is that the coarse fodder yield in meadows and rangelands is low.
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