Assessment of the activities of Tariş Olive and Olive Oil Agricultural Sales Cooperatives and determination of producer satisfaction: The case of Aydin province

Olive cultivation is one of the most important income sources in Aydın. In the olive oil evaluation done by producers in Aydın, TARİŞ olive and olive oil agricultural sales cooperative union is the most important power in both in national and international olive market.In the survey, the centre of Aydın and central towns were chosen as workplaces because Aydın ranks in the first place in terms of the existence of olive trees and the second place in terms of the production. On the other hand it is very well known that in Ege Region, TARİŞ has 33 unit cooperatives in six cities and 13 of them are in Aydın.In this survey the main aim is to find out the expectations from TARİŞ to improve the region?s olive trade and the satisfactions of the members of producers. In the survey, a questionnaire was done among 100 people who were determined according to the ratio of total members of the 13 cooperatives to the members of the unit cooperatives.The questionnaire, done among the producers constituted of the first data, TARİŞ?s general assembly reports, accounting records? data which was obtained from administrators and workers constituted the second data of the survey. Besides, some other resources such as previous researches about the subject, published books, reports, essays etc were referred.When data collected from TARİŞ activity reports assessed, it is observed that as the number of members increase, the amount of product delivery increases as well. However; due to the fact that some business partners give some of their crops to the tradesmen, there has been a variation in the rate of crops delivery to TARİŞ over the years.On the other hand, judging the average of last four seasons to analyze; the amount of Association?s olive oil purchasing is found to be 50%. While in off-years, there is a decline in the amount of TARİŞ?s purchasing olive oil made for cooking; in the on-years, the amount ofpurchase tends to increase. This difference could be explained to be as a consequence of cultivating less of their fields which might caused losses in the quality and amount of oil in off-years years.Additionally, in an entire production season, business partners have 80% of their olives pressed to TARİŞ and 60% of this obtained olive oil is sold to TARİŞ, 11% is sold to the tradesmen and 29% is put aside for domestic uses by them. In general, It?s found that 65% of the olive producers are middle-aged and 57% of them are educated at elementary level. Thus, this suggests that in order to increase the olive oil yield and diffuse the novelties in the region and, there is definitely a great necessity of technical support supplied by TARİŞ.The satisfaction has been intended to be found how among the business partners taking part in TARİŞ via a five-point Likert scale questionnaire (1.Never 2.Rarely 3.Sometimes 4.Usually 5.Always) and findings are as follows.It?s discovered that business partners who are satisfied with the management of TARİŞ are on average 3,893, the ones who are pleased with the support on the cultivation and crop processing issues are on average 3,488, the ones glad with the marketing and sales of TARİŞ are on average 4,337, and business partners? expectations from TARİŞ is on average 3,610.TARİŞ, Producer Satisfaction, Olive Oil, Aydın