Mechanization and agricultural farm structure in the agricultural area of the Dardanelles region

Abstract

This study was conducted to determine the current mechanization in agricultural farms of the Bayramic-Ezine-Kumkale agricultural plains, in Canakkale (Dardanelles) region of west of Turkey. For this purpose, a questionnaire wascarried out for 401 farms capable of growing both field and horticulture crops. Results indicated that each farm havingsmall size characteristic has at least one tractor, but 19.20% of farms had more than one tractor. The status of havingone (91.67%) or more (41.67%) tractors in a farm was higher in Bayramic, due to field and horticulture crops, thanboth others. However, the highest number of tractors was recorded in Kumkale farms (60.00%), followed by Ezine(31.65%) and Bayramic (8.35%). Most of them are young, but 12.00% are older than 24-year, especially MasseyFerguson-135, Universal and Fiat (54C, 480). The most used tractor brand has been New Holland (32.15%), followedby Massey Ferguson (18.99%), Fiat (9.11%), John Deere (8.10%), Case IH (7.85%), Same (5.05%), Deutz (4.05%),Steyr (3.54%), Valtra (2.28%) and others (Ford, Hattat, Erkunt, Basak, Tumosan, Universal, Kubota and Landini). Onaverage three-plain, 77.03% of farms were preferred to purchase the new tractors, 22.97% preferred the second-handones. Tractor was 0.99 per farm, but it was the highest in Ezine (1.17). Agricultural area per tractor was 117 decare onaverage three-plain, the highest for Kumkale (136 decare) and the lowest for Ezine (83 decare tractor-1). Machineryper tractor was 7.67 for all farms, but Kumkale (8.78) had the highest, and then followed by Bayramic (6.58) andEzine (5.87).