Knowledge level of vegetable growng farmers on organc producton n Diyarbakır provnce

Abstract

As was the case n the World, ntensve nput use was seen the only remedy to ncrease agrcultural productvty so that tomeet the needs for food and raw materal n the second half of the last century n Turkey. Accordngly, chemcal fertlzerand pestcde use were supported and encouraged. Unconscous chemcal use ncreased the plant producton but resultedn poor qualty products and human health dsorders. As a result of foodborn and envronmental health problems, a newtype of agrcultural producton was urged and encouraged by the conscous customers all over the World. Ths s calledorganc or ecologc farmng whch ams to restore the unwanted outcomes of ntensve or conventonal agrculture andproduce healthy food to satsfy customer demands. In achevng the goals of organc producton and ncreasng organcfood producton t s of great mportance to unvel the knowledge level, problems and requests of the producers snceculture, customs, socal envronment and the knowledge accumulated over years shape the agrcultural producton. Inths study, t s amed to reveal the knowledge level and producton customs of the organic vegetable producers inDiyarbakır province. Study data was collected from the vegetable growng farmers wth structured questonnaresthrough face to face ntervews. Sample sze was determned usng smple randomzed samplng method. In analyss ofthe data descrptve statstcs method and Ch-Square test was employed. Study results revealed that about 61% of therespondents dd not have ther sols tested. It was also determned that of all respondents 81% act accordng to ther ownknowledge when coverng the plant nutrent requrements of the sols as 7,5% consult ther frends or neghbours andonly about 2% followed the recommendatons of agrcultural experts. The most strkng result, on the other hand, wasthat only about 27% of the respondents accepted that they had adequate knowledge on organc farmng whle the rest not.