Production and marketing structure of almond in the East Mediterranean region

The production of almond has been importantly increased as a result of rapid increase in almond planting areas in East Mediterranean Region. It is expected that the young trees that do not yet produce recovery of the almond produced from those planting areas will be increased in following years. For this reason, the structure of almond production and marketing should be revealed, the determination of problems that may be encountered in a future and solution suggestions for those problems are necessary. The main material of the study consists of the primary data obtained as a result of the of the face to face interviews through 100 producers, 8 intermediaries, 4 retailers and 2 almond processing plants in the Eastern Mediterranean Region. The data obtained are presented by calculating the frequencies, ratios and averages. The Anova analysis was used to determine the differences among the business groups of producers. SWOT analysis were used to explain the strengths and weaknesses of almond sector and opportunities and threats in the sector. In the field of research, when marketing organization's activities is evaluated, it can be said that there are decreasing factors in the processing, packaging, storage, grading and rating and standardization services. The fact that fewer types of intermediaries exist in the research field weakens the market position of the producers against the intermediaries. Finally, some problems were determined in terms of the organization of production and marketing of almond. To evaluate the production that is expected to increase in the following years, it is necessary to not only improve the production technique of almond, but eliminate the defects in the organization of marketing. Furthermore, the marketing strategies should be planned there after determination of target market.