Evaluation of agricultural policies by farmers in the COVID-19 pandemic process: Ankara province Beypazarı district research

The world has faced a global crisis due to the COVID-19 pandemic, affecting many countries and almost all sectors. This study aims to evaluate agricultural policies in the Beypazarı district of Ankara during the pandemic, identify the problems, and make suggestions for production. Also, it aims to determine the socioeconomic characteristics of producers, the factors affecting agricultural production, change in marketing structures, and level of knowledge. To reach these objectives, 77 enterprises were selected from 10 villages where intensive production was carried out in Beypazarı by Random Stratified Sampling Method. Questionnaires were applied to face-to-face interviews, data on the evaluation of agricultural policies during the pandemic were collected, and the Simple Arithmetic Mean method was used to evaluate the data. Likert Scale was used to determine the impact of the pandemic on producers in Beypazarı and the problems faced. As a result, the average land width in enterprises was 158.66 decares, 68.33% of the producers found the amount of agricultural support sufficient during the pandemic, and the most important problem faced by the enterprises during production was the input cost and the most important issue that the enterprises needed was the capital. During this period, it was determined that agricultural production continued without interruption thanks to policies such as being exempted from the curfew imposed for the sustainability of production and benefiting from interest-free credit opportunities. As a result, producers should be protected against disruptions in the marketing chain and increased costs due to increases in exchange rates.