Socio-economic structure and marketing problems of tea farmers in Rize province

The aim of this study, which is aimed at farmers producing tea in Rize province (68.18% of Turkey tea production), seeks to examine the economic and marketing structure of tea production, to reveal the production and marketing problems of tea in the region and to develop suggestions for improving tea production in the area. The main material of the study was obtained from the surveys of the tea producing farmers in the Merkez, Fındıklı, Ardeşen and Çayeli districts of Rize. Neyman method, one of the stratified sampling methods was used for determining the sample size. The representative sample number of producers was calculated as 90. In the evaluation of the general structural characteristics of the farmers who are tea producer, indicators such as parcel size of farmers, age of farmers, education status, GPVs (gross production value) were examined. The average tea production area in Rize province was 8.79 decares, and 96.33% was their own property. 38.89% of the tea producers in the region were primary school, 21.11% were university and 20.00% were middle and high school graduates. The average number of households of the tea producers was 4.3, of which 53.75% was in the 15-49 age group and 29.20% were in the age group 50 and older. The average GPV of the farmers was 28253.33 TRL. A Single Product Budget Analysis Method was used to determine the costs. Production costs in the average of tea production enterprises were 17223.6 TRL. Variable cost's share was 37.29% and fixed cost's share was 62.70% of the production costs. Raising awareness of the farmers, increasing the cooperatives, and by lowering the cost of inputs could be suggested to increase tea production in Turkey and in the field of research.