Factors Affecting Landowners’ Willingness to Sustain Hiring Foreign Farmworkers: The Case of Banana Producers in Mersin Province, Turkey

Osman Doğan Bulut (), Süleyman Karaman, Zeynep Çelik Kaysim and Ayşe Karadağ Gürsoy
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Osman Doğan Bulut: Department of Agricultural Economics, Faculty of Agriculture, Igdır University, Igdır 76000, Turkey
Süleyman Karaman: Department of Agricultural Economics, Faculty of Agriculture, Akdeniz University, Antalya 07050, Turkey
Zeynep Çelik Kaysim: Department of Agricultural Economics, Faculty of Agriculture, Igdır University, Igdır 76000, Turkey
Ayşe Karadağ Gürsoy: Department of Agricultural Economics, Faculty of Agriculture, Igdır University, Igdır 76000, Turkey

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 17, 1-16

Abstract: Turkey is a country with a migration route throughout history and has provided protection to more refugees than any other country. But, the secure deportation of refugees is stated by government officials. This research aims to determine the socio-economic characteristics of landowners who hire foreign farmworkers and the factors affecting their willingness to employ foreign farmworkers. In order to meet the objective, a survey study based on face-to-face interviews was conducted with 200 landowners producing bananas and employing foreign farmworkers in Mersin. The level of willingness to hire foreign farmworkers was calculated, and the ordinal logistic regression (OLR) model was executed to determine affective factors. According to the results, the landowners’ average age was 40.5 years, and their agricultural experience was 11.07 years, with 47% of them having a primary school degree. A total of 50% of the landowner farmers had a high willingness level, 29.5% had a medium willingness level, and 20.5% had a low willingness level. As for OLR, the factors of land size, continuity status of farmworkers, and the reasons to hire foreign farmworkers were significant ( p < 0.05). Contrary to the general opinion, which is that the reason for the willingness to hire foreign farmworkers is to use them as a cheap labor force, this research found that the reason with the greatest impact is that landowner farmers have difficulty in finding local farmworkers. The shortage of agricultural labor has been filled with foreign farmworkers in Mersin province. Every foreign farmworker may be registered with one or more agricultural holdings so that the deportation of refugees does not cause a labor supply problem in agriculture; also, citizens seeking employment from other regions of Turkey may be supported to be farmworkers in regions with labor shortages. In order to avoid supply security problems in agricultural production, policymakers should urgently develop policies based on field data.

Keywords: foreign farmworker; refugee; ordinal logistic regression; Mersin; Turkey (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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