Socio-Economic Characteristics of Members of Cattle Breeders Association in Hatay Province

Objective: In this study, it was aimed to examine the socio-economic structures of the dairy cattle enterprises who were members of Hatay Cattle Breeders Association (HCBA) Material and Methods: The primary data of this study were obtained from dairy cattle enterprises in Hatay province who were members of Cattle Breeders' Association. The data were obtained by questionnaire, and Random Sampling Method was used to determine sample size which was calculated as 112. Results: According to the research findings, averages of; enterprise holder's age, household size, land size, the number of cows per farm, and daily milk yield per dairy cattle were found respectively as followed; 47,60 years old, 5,14 persons, 45,79 decares, 11,69 heads and 17,38 kg. The average of total enterprise capital was 262.854 TL, and 26.63% of the total capital was consisted of animal capital. 87,5% of enterprise owners stated that their livelihoods were based on milk cattle breeding. In the research, it was found out that members of the Hatay Cattle Breeders Association had small scale dairy farms, small sized lands, low number of milking cows, insufficient capital, low profit level, low daily milk yield per cow, and the majority of the owners were middle age and over. Conclusion: The results of the study have shown that it is necessary to encourage higher education level people to have dairy cattle activities, increasing the number of cows, converting small family farms into medium and large scale farms, educate business owners about animal breeding and give more technical support to the members of the associations