Economical and political analysis of technology use in vegetable greenhouses in the city of Antalya

Rapid increase in income and world population will spur rapid increases in global demand for agricultural products. In parallel, increases in global demand bring a strong pressure on natural resources used in agricultural sector all over the world. For this reason, the designing of policies for adaption new technology and innovation are essential in order to increase the marginal productivity of resources used in the sector. As a thesis research field, vegetable greenhouse production sector has been chosen because production and technology relationship has been comparatively easier to study. 151 traditional glass and polyethylene soil culture and 18 modern polycarbonate soilless culture greenhouses were selected among the greenhouses located at Kumluca, Serik, Gazipaşa ve Konyaaltı regions by stratified random sampling method to administer face to face questionnaire. Demographic structure of producers, firm characteristics, greenhouse structure and production technology used in each type of greenhouses were evaluated with the help of the data obtained through questionnaires from 169 greenhouse farmers. In addition, 47 traditional glass and polyethylene soil culture and 18 modern polycarbonate soilless culture greenhouse farmers engaged in the production of tomato were selected in order to ensure a homogenous group. Fixed and variable costs of production, production value, gross profit, net profit, the amount of greenhouse construction investment, payback period, benefit-cost ratios, break-even point, net present value, internal rate of return of investment are calculated per decare. Technical efficiencies for each type of greenhouse are calculated by "Data Envelopment Analysis" (DEA) before and after government subsidies. In the last section, the awareness and effectiveness of government subsidies among producers were analyzed and all research findings are discussed, compared and concluded. Based on the result of the analysis, It was clear that modern soilless and traditional soil culture vegetable greenhouses were different each other from different perspective. Modern soilless vegetable greenhouses were capital intensive and their management structures were relatively planned and institutional comparing to others. Since modern soilless culture greenhouses were knowledge and financial capital intensive and had lees structural problems, they had a dominant position for penetrating national and local politics compare to traditional soil culture greenhouses. Modern soilless agricultural greenhouses produced twice as much tomato product than traditional soil culture greenhouses per decare. In a similar manner, there was a nearly two-fold difference between the production cost of tomato produced in modern soilless polycarbonate greenhouses and the production cost of tomato produced in the traditional soil culture greenhouses per decare. But, the price exposed in the market per kilogram of tomato production for modern soilless polycarbonate greenhouses was almost 30 percent more than the price of traditional soil culture greenhouses due to differences in variety, product quality and marketing opportunities etc. For this reason, there were differences in net profits for the different type of greenhouses. Net profit per decare for traditional glass, polyethylene and modern polycarbonate tomato greenhouses were 7.367,45 TL, 3.796,66 TL and 16.966,5 TL respectively. Greenhouse investment data were obtained from construction firms engaged in manufacturing greenhouses by face to face interviews. The amount of construction cost for polycarbonate greenhouse suitable for soilless tomato farming was average 117.000 TL per decare, 55.000 TL per decare for traditional glass greenhouse and 23.000 TL per decare for polyethylene greenhouse. The result of financial analysis showed that payback period was longest for the investment of glasshouse (7.42 years), shortest for the investment of polyethylene greenhouse (6.05 years). But glasshouse required a minimum production in the breakeven point (6.924 kg). Traditional glass greenhouse had the highest benefit-cost ratio (1.49). Meanwhile, modern polycarbonate soilless greenhouse had the significant advantages compare to traditional glass and polyethylene soil culture greenhouses in terms net present value (28.371,05 TL) and internal rate of return (25.16%). Physical values of 12 variable inputs for modern polycarbonate soilless greenhouse and 11 variable inputs for traditional soil culture greenhouse were used to calculate the technical efficiencies for Decision Making Units (DMUs) by DEA under the assumption of constant returns to scale. Technical efficiencies were calculated in the case of government subsidies received or not received by DMUs. Comparative efficiency analysis showed that modern polycarbonate soilless greenhouse (0.952 and 0.953) was technically more efficient than traditional glass and polyethylene soil culture greenhouses (0.839 and 0.843). But the average technical efficiency values did not change associated with government subsidies received for both modern and traditional greenhouses. Finally, when it comes to benefiting from conditional government subsidies, modern polycarbonate soilless greenhouses which have comparatively less structural problems benefit more than traditional family-run greenhouse.