Abstract:

Aims: This study was conducted to identify awareness levels of agricultural faculty students regarding traditional food and geographical indications. Methods and Results: The study was carried out with 156 undergraduate students from Faculty of Agriculture at Hatay Mustafa Kemal University. The prominent foods which were specified as traditional food by the students were; künefe (21.79%), various cheese types (19.23%), yoghurt (19.23%), içli köfte (17.31%), kebab (14.74%), tarhana (14.10%) and lahmacun (12.18%). Students stated that they mostly prefer traditional foods when they eat outside, and some of them (25.64%) stated that is because of traditional foods are being affordable. 66.00% of the students stated that they heard about geographical indications and 69.9% of these students (72 persons) stated that they knew some products with geographical indications. Künefe was the most known food among the traditional foods, however, only 11.54% of the students were aware of the fact that Antakya Künefesi is a food with geographical indication. Antakya Künefesi was followed by Adana Kebabı (5.13%), Antep Baklavası (4.49%) and Antakya Sürk Cheese (3.21%). Among the products with geographical indication of Hatay; Antakya Tuzlu Yoğurdu and Hatay Defne Sabunu were only recognized by 3 students (1.92%) and 1 student respectively. Conclusions: Turkey has a great potential in terms of its cultural and geographical diversity, and traditional food. However, only a limited portion of this potential is recognized by people. Agricultural Engineers have a significant role to reveal this potential and to make it economically valuable. Significance and Impact of the Study: This study is significant as it reveals the awareness of the Agricultural Engineers about traditional foods who will directly work with producers and provide a basis for the studies to be carried out in the future.

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