Özet:

In this study, it was aimed to determine the effectiveness of the marketing organization of tomato production in the open field in Hatay, which is located in the Mediterranean region in the south of Türkiye, and to determine the problems experienced during production and marketing and to present solutions. Data were collected by conducting interviews with the help of two different questionnaires, the producers who grow tomatoes in the open field and the intermediaries engaged in the trade of tomatoes in the open field. “Simple Random Sampling Method” was used while determining the number of producers to be surveyed. The research was conducted in the Arsuz, Reyhanlı, Samandağ, Antakya, and Kırıkhan districts of Hatay province in 2020. The surveys were completed by interviewing 60 producers and 10 intermediaries engaged in open-field tomato production. It has been determined that farm owners with an average age of 50.47 years have been producing tomatoes for an average of 16.13 years. The tomatoes produced are table and tomato paste. Producers sell 94.44% of the table tomatoes they produce to the vegetable marketplace and 5.56% to the local farmers market. 96.00% of the tomato paste was sold to the processing plant and 4.00% was sold to the local market. Produced tomatoes were classified in 59 enterprises before the sale. The classification was made according to maturity and size. Trucks and tractors are used for transportation, while the products are transported from the enterprise with crates. The remaining enterprise does not classify. The average sales price of tomatoes to brokers is 1.43 TL, and the average retail price is 4.20 TL, with a relative margin of 34.04%. Business owners stated that the sales price of the product is determined according to the supply and demand in the market conditions of that day. Businesses stated that while purchasing products by brokers, they act according to product quality at a rate of 68.35% and according to the number of products at a rate of 31.65%. The most important marketing problems of the producers in the research area were the low price of the product, the lack of organization, the lack of product storage, and the high transportation costs. The results of the research show that if the current marketing problems in open tomato production are eliminated, the production areas can expand in the coming years, and the income of the producers will increase thanks to the increase in the production amount and reasonable product prices.

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