Evaluation of Economic Structure of Cherry Growing in Turkey

Abstract

Cherry production has a vital role regarding income source for producers and export sources for Turkey. In Turkey, several studies have done regarding the technical practices, and most of them were not considered the economic dimension of cherry production. This research aimed to determine the production inputs, costs and profitability of cherry production. This study aims to reveal the relationship between orchard size and profitability by using general economic calculations based on Afyonkarahisar, Denizli, Isparta, Izmir, Konya and Manisa provinces, in Turkey. It is assumed that this study may be able to close the existing gap regarding other studies in the literature to a certain extent. This study support that more prominent cherry orchards had higher profits compared to smaller. The relative profit varies between 2.2 to 3.0 in the farm size groups. In this study, it was found that relative profit is the highest in the bigger-scale orchards. The most crucial problem for producers is to achieve a profitable cherry selling price. This study found the output/input ratio is high. Orchard size and production cost have a significant influence on the economic success of a cherry orchard. Production cost has a negative influence on profitability with a low cherry yield. In other words, cherry production is profitable in the research region, but some recommendations can be made within the framework of research findings to get better.