The Impact of Multilateral Policies on Partner Satisfaction and Awareness: Agricultural Credit Cooperatives

Abstract

The fact that the agricultural structure in Turkey consists of small fragmented and scattered lands, animal and plant production practices that are not managed with a modern management approach, require agricultural cooperatives to be a balance element in agriculture. Moreover, agriculture is not a sector that can be left unattended and it is not a market that can be expected to take shape on its own in a free market economy. Therefore, it is imperative that agriculture is credited, guided by projects, and managed with the logic of economic business. However, it is seen that this importance is not understood sufficiently, that there are problems in implementation and that determined policies are not put forward to eliminate it. During the research, the contributions of the agricultural credit cooperatives in Tekirdag Province to their partners were presented and solutions were discussed. In the study, 13.747 out of 18.190 partners were active partners in 43 units of cooperatives in Tekirdag Regional Union and sample was determined as 121 partners. The questionnaire was carried out through face to face interviews. The impact assessment of the multi-purpose activities of the Agricultural Credit Cooperatives in the province of Tekirdag on the target audience partners has been interpreted with various graphical and statistical analysis methods. The partners do not find the loan interest rates of the Agricultural Credit Cooperatives low enough. This result means that the solution suggestions such as the Agricultural Credit Cooperatives' reducing the resource cost by creating Cooperatives Bank or mutual fund resources should be evaluated. The multi-purpose activities of the agricultural credit cooperatives were evaluated in line with the opinions of the partners, and the effects of multipurpose policies on the cooperative partners were analyzed by correlation analysis. There is a strong positive correlation between multi-purpose policies and faciliating the work of farmers (Correlation coefficient: 0.298). A very good positive correlation was observed between participating in projects and faciliating the work of farmers (Correlation coefficient: 0.408). In the study, it is revealed that the Agricultural Credit Cooperatives carry out many agricultural activities together,which is positively received by the partners. The partners of the Agricultural Credit Cooperatives see these cooperatives as an important tool in running their business and a good alternative source of finance. However, in order to achieve a full democratic structure, the Cooperatives Bank to be established should take an active place within the Bank.