Proceedings: 3rd International Conference on Food and Agricultural Economics: SOCIO-ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF BREEDERS, BREEDERS’ ASSOCIATIONS AND MEMBER RELATIONS, A CASE STUDY OF SIVAS

Farmers‟ organization is an important tool for individual farmers to compete with big companies in agricultural sector and adapt changing market conditions. Small and medium size farmers have to organize to survive and improve income. Especially in developing countries, organization level is below the desired. The purpose of this research is to identify breeders‟ socio-economic status, their problem and relations with associations and association performance to fulfill their tasks within legal frame. The scope of the work was constituted of 3 Breeders Association members organized in the Sivas province of Turkey. These were Cattle, Sheep and Goat Breeders‟ Association and Associations of Beekeepers. A survey was conducted with 369 breeders to collect primary data. 94 cattle breeders, 168 sheep and goat breeders and 107 beekeepers. Non parametric tests usedto analyze the data, namely Chi square, Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney U tests. It was determined that member of different associations differed statistically in terms of income, marketing, participation in general assemblies, training and basic information sources, convincing factor to become member. However there was no difference in terms of taking part in management board and the idea of investing among members.It was found that 27.5% of the respondents did not know their associates‟ task and responsibilities.Government, unions and farmers must work jointly and each side take some actions for more effective farmer organization. It can be suggested that the associations have to do much more serious and intensive work on the subject of providing input, agricultural extension and especially the marketing organizations for their members. All activities and programs have to be designed by the associations according to member‟s availability, their workload and daily and seasonal agricultural calendar.