Structure of tea harvest comparasion of basic agricultural products and foreign trade in the east region of Black sea

Tea plantation in Turkey has been initiated in 1947 and domestic tea demand has been totally fulfilled by the domestic production since 1963. Since 1984, tea sector was under state monopoly after that private sector has been also joined to tea production and production-capacity has been increased tremendously in a short time. Increasing plantation areas without any planning, control and private sectors" production without any program, plan and preparation have generated over production, stock and idle capacity as well as mismanagement of resources in the tea sector. Due to shrinking of production and marketing share of Çaykur in the domestic market, the over production of tea has been partly exported in a low price. It is a fact that, other crops rather than tea- furthering tea producers to depend on only tea farming in the blacksea region have been ignored very long time and investment programs in developing industry and commerce in the region have not been encouraged enough. Because of over production of tea, insufficient subvention in price and late payment to producers, idle capacity, high cost of production and competition, Caykur has effected the profitability of private sector. In other words, excess production over the demand has decreased the value of the production. The government decree issued in 1993 obligated to trim 1/5 of tea plantation each year and loss of trim has been also compensated. Thus, excess supply of tea has been prevented and quality of raw tea has been increased. This procedure has been considered helpful by both producer and farmers. In the tea sector, problems in subvention price, payment, harvest, transportation, selling, fertilization and organizational structure are still prevailing. IXWith the agreement between Turkey and Belarus in 1996, Turkey agreed to export 41 thousand ton Turkish tea in barter and Turkish tea was entered to the market of 22 states to sell Çaykur's excess stock and meet its financial needs. To be permanent in the market and thus to export over stock to these states, Çaykur must take into consideration to produce quality tea in a competitive price to the possibility of exporting 15-20 ton tea each year. In order to help the people of this region to not be depend on tea only, production of the other alternative crops taking into consideration form of the land productivity and market value of crop should not be ignored but must be encouraged. Regarding the lack of the land areas, investments on tourism and commerce must be encouraged by the government to increase income and life standard of people of this region. The various problems of tea producers and organizational obstacles must be eliminated by the new legal and institutional arrangements. If tea production and the other agricultural and commercial activities in the region are organized by the needs of regional socio-economic factors, both local people, economy and country will gain great benefit. X