Current status, problems and solution suggestions of natural cooled underground storages in Nevşehir province

This research was carried out by face-to-face survey with 90 naturally cooled underground warehouse operators in Nevşehir province. In Nevşehir region, which has a suitable climate and geological feature, there are total of 1141 naturally cooled underground warehouses with a capacity of 1.281.100 tons which were built by excavation of naturally formed volcanic tuffs in a certain size. In these warehouses, mainly edible, seed potatoes and lemon are stored. Male population constitutes the majority of naturally cooled underground storage operators in the region. Although more than half of warehouse operators have warehousing experience of 5-20 years, most of them have a serious lack of education about storage. About 87.8% of the warehouses in the region are owned by the operators. The majority of naturally cooled underground storage operators in Nevşehir province are also producers. They store their products in their own warehouses. Potato varieties stored in these storages are usually stored at 4-8 ° C and 80-95% relative humidity for 7-8 months, lemon at 8-12 ° C and 85-95% relative humidity for 9-10 months. In order to develop underground storage with natural cooling in Nevşehir, which has an inadequate organization, warehouse operators should be united under the roof of an organization and the operators should have a say in determining the prices of the products they store and realizing the sales in cash. There is no insurance coverage for any problems in the products during storage in naturally cooled underground warehouses. Therefore, an insurance coverage should be developed for these and similar businesses. Warehouse operators should be made aware of the reduction of losses in warehouses and protection of product quality by educating on storage conditions, warehouse diseases and pests and proper warehouse construction. Using the data obtained within the scope of this research, the problems encountered in naturally cooled underground storage operations throughout the province of Nevşehir and solutions for solving these problems were tried to be presented.