Fisherman's tendency towards the organization: Case of Antalya province

Fisheries organizations, which are established with the aim of to meet economic and social needs of its members, are considered as an element of criteria of developed countries nowadays. Fisherman prefer to be organized in order to overcome risks which they have faced during all processes from production to marketing, they also it enable the quality and effectiveness in their activities, fisheries organizations in Turkey are fisheries cooperatives which are founded according to Law No 1163 and aquaculture producer unions and their head organisations which are founded according to Law No 5200. Since their aims are multiple, these organizations take many different tasks which are, regulating seafood market, protecting fisherman‟s rights, supplying trainings on production and marketing. In this study is aimed to revealed fisherman‟s tendency towards the organisation, organizational structures and factors factor affecting members. Within the scope of this research, face-to-face surveys were conducted with 75 members of 14 active fisheries cooperative societies and 35 members of Antalya Freshwater Aquaculture Producer Union located in Antalya Province. The survey application period, which is the data collection phase of the research, was planned as the fishing season and surveyed between November 2017 and March 2018. Three groups of data were obtained about the members of cooperatives and producer union. The first of the concern was about socio-economic status of surveyed fisherman, second was about fishing profession and the last was about members‟ relationships, thoughts and evaluations with organizations. In this study, descriptive tests were carried out to determine the characteristics of the surveyed fisherman and chi-square test was used for the data envisaged as a result of these descriptive tests, and the factor analysis method, which is one of the multivariable statistical analyses, was used in order to determine the relationship between the fisheries organization and its members. The results show that both fisheries organizations have young/middle aged members, some of the members have additional income differ from fisheries, education levels of the members are rather low, however, producer union members have slightly higher education than cooperatives. When relationship between the organisation members and fisheries industry was evaluated, it was determined that both organizations have members with 20 or more years of experience and do not have inclination towards other sectors even if their profit was rather low due to low prices and high expenses of seafood. Most of them are considered as small business owners regarding their production capacities and ship iv sizes. While the biggest expense is fuel for member of the fisheries cooperatives, it is fish feed for members of aquaculture producer union. According to study results, to procure cheaper inputs for production, increase profit and sell products with better deals are possible with a strong and effective organization. Although receiving economic and technical support is the main reason of members to participate in an organization, they think that activities of cooperatives and growth of producer union are not sufficient. On the other hand, even the conditions are limited, sufficient support is not given and success is not achieved as much as expected, the efforts to stand and increasing memberships of organizations regarded as a positive result for being organized. Despite the differences in structure and function of fisheries organizations in our country conduct actions in order to adapt European Union which stands out with its strong and successful organizations. However, as surveyed members point out in this research that sufficient state support is essential in order to have independent organizations which influences seafood market, supports members financial and social conditions, extensive, developed and powerful organization, educated, known the importance of being organised and able to protective the members‟ rights.