Carrying out activities with the motto of “we are transforming agriculture,” İzmir-based Doktar conducted a survey among Turkish farmers. The survey revealed that Turkish farmers are poor at financial capabilities such as cost analysis and insurance as well as the implementation of modern agricultural techniques in cultivation, thus their income has been on the decrease.

The survey of “The Pulse of Farmers” by Izmir-based Doktar to see profiles of Turkish farmers revealed interesting results. The company, which is specialized on the production and development of agricultural technologies, carried out this survey for the first time to get a clear picture on cultivation habits of Turkish farmers, revenue changes, application of finance and cost analysis, preference of product sales, and agricultural information. A total of 3187 producers from 81 cities and 665 towns participated in the survey, which was carried out between April and May 2018. The results were categorized on the basis of region and production groups and analyzed according to real Turkey’s distribution. The results showed that 56 percent of producers do not keep the cost account while 48 percent of farmers who withdraw money from bank with maturity do not know how much interest rate they paid. Apart from questions on financial literacy, farmers revealed their habits on insurance. According to this, farmers who have agricultural insurance are around 20 across Turkey while this figure is even lower in the eastern part of the country. The survey questioned farmers on how and under what conditions and to whom producers sold their products and when these producers received their money. According to the answers, farmers sell their products mostly to traders (59 percent). Unions and facilities follow this. 10 percent of the producers sell their products directly to final users. Most of the time, farmers bought their inputs from one dealer and they do not usually bargain. 70 percent of farmers receive their money at the harvest. Three out of 4 farmers have not heard anything about licensed warehouses; those who use licensed warehouses are no more than two percent. According to the survey, more than half of the producers did not carry out the soil analysis and do not work with an agricultural engineer on regular basis. On the implementation of agricultural techniques, Çukurova and Akdeniz regions come first while, on the basis of product group, the “grain” group is poor at this implementation. Those farmers who do not develop their financial and cultivation competence face with lower income and thus cannot invest into their fields. The survey revealed that 84 percent of farmers cannot save money and cannot make a new investment into their fields. In short, Turkish farmers are loyal to their fields but cannot earn money. Three out of 4 farmers are proud of their work; however, only 30 percent of farmers lean towards that their children continue this job. More than half of farmers believe that the society does not respect for their work. Besides, farmers (84 percent) do not think of selling their lands and want to continue farming. The survey, which shows that 88 percent of Turkish farmers have this job for 10 or more years, also analyzed habit of television, internet, and telephone. The results showed that more than half of the farmers use at least one smartphone application; but the number of farmers that look information on website, service, and application on technical issues is still low. Besides, as the value of product and the area of land increase, the interest and access into technical information source also increase.