Farmers' Preferences for Cooperative Services in the Aegean Region of Turkey

Abstract

The principal aim of this study is to determine farmers' preferences and priority rankings for marketing, input procurement, credit and technical assistance services provided by agricultural development cooperatives in the Aegean region of Turkey. Data were collected from 203 farmers in six provinces of the region via face-to-face interviews using a structured questionnaire. A fuzzy pair-wise comparison was employed to designate the service preferences of farmers and their priority rankings for services provided to them. Cluster analysis was applied to separate farms into groups so that the differences in preferences could be determined between farm types. The results indicate that the most preferred service that cooperatives provide for farmers is marketing. Additionally, cluster analysis revealed that fruit farms prefer marketing service, while vegetable farms prefer input procurement.