Structural transformation in hazelnut production: A sociological study on villages of Fatsa and Unye

In today's world, in Turkey and worldwide, agricultural production maintains its importance and is still the main income source for many people. While there has been a global and local transformation in the agricultural policies implemented by the states, from the past to the present, capitalist relations in agriculture have developed and spread, and the peasantry has entered a transformation process. In this study, it is aimed to examine the capitalist relations that developed and spreaded in agriculture and the general structure of petty commodity producer. For this purpose, hazelnut production has been chosen as the subject of the research and it has been tried to be examined and interpreted sociologically, together with the socioeconomic effects of the transformation in the policies applied by the government towards hazelnut in general. Hazelnut, is an agricultural product that mostly produced in Turkey around the world and one of the most important exporting products of the country. Because of it is the main source of income for the people in the region where it grows, it has both an economic and a social value. In this research, the development of capitalist relations in agriculture; and the transformations of the state's agricultural policies has been applied in general and spesifically to hazelnut tried to be examined through hazelnut production. For this purpose, during the hazelnut harvesting period in 2019, an application-based qualitative research was conducted in Güvercinlik village of Fatsa district and Dumanlı village of Ünye district of Ordu.