Agricultural cooperatives and marketing concept: A study on determining the consumers' opinions toward marketing activities of agricultural cooperatives

Agricultural cooperatives are significant forms of business enterprises. An agricultural cooperative is an association of local farmers who join together to engage in the production of agricultural products. Farmers seeking to organize cooperatives usually expect the benefits of economies of scale. Many farmers with common interests may organize through cooperatives in order to strengthen their market power. Numerous farmers in the agriculture industry also add value to their products through the marketing efforts of cooperatives. Local farmers produce unprocessed agricultural products such as cotton, sunflower, wheat and etc. and agricultural cooperatives often process, sell and ship these products of the members. While the production of the agricultural products has been growing, the marketing of such products via cooperatives in Turkey has proved challenging. It is viewed that some of the agricultural cooperatives is not successful for marketing the agricultural products. One of these cooperatives is Cukobirlik (Cukurova Agricultural Cooperatives Association) ? a big association with about 65.000 members (farmers) located in Cukurova and GAP regions. Its hinterland includes the cities such as Adana, Mersin, Osmaniye, Antakya, Mardin, Şanlıurfa, Gaziantep, Adıyaman, Kahramanmaraş, Diyarbakır and Batman. vi Agricultural cooperatives can organize organic production and influence consumers' purchasing behaviour through the employment of appropriate marketing strategies. The main objective of this study is to determine the members? opinions toward marketing activities of Cukobirlik. The study also investigates the differences in opinions with respect to education and income level. According to the research findings, Cukobirlik does not have a modern marketing concept. It has been observed that the cooperative does not have the desire to develop the distribution channels, to produce products in larger quantities and in different kinds meeting the consumers? desires and to advertise these products. It can shortly be said that Cukobirlik has been working with a concept of selling what it can produce, moreover selling it only customers to buy it instead of being customeroriented. Keywords: Agricultural Cooperatives, Marketing Problems, Cukobirlik