Willingness of Hemp Farmers to Establish Producer Organizations: Evidence from Samsun, Türkiye

Producer organizations play a significant role in agricultural value chains in terms of controlling the market, enhancing bargaining power, and ensuring economic sustainability. Industrial hemp is of strategic importance as a high-value-added fiber crop. However, in Türkiye, the hemp sector is largely dominated by private companies, and there is no producer organization established and operated by producers. The purpose of this study is to determine the willingness of hemp producers in Samsun Province, Türkiye’s most important hemp-producing region, to establish a producer organization and to identify the factors influencing this willingness. The data for the study were obtained from face-to-face surveys conducted with 112 hemp producers selected using simple random sampling. The CART algorithm was used to identify the factors influencing the willingness to organize. The results show that the majority of farmers (89.3%) are willing to establish agricultural organizations. According to the results of the CART algorithm, none of the hemp producers who have had negative experiences with cooperatives in the past are willing to organize. Other important factors influencing the willingness to organize include having farming as one’s primary occupation, the area under hemp cultivation, and the age of the producers. The findings indicate that institutional trust, rather than sociodemographic characteristics, is the primary determinant of decisions to establish producer organizations. This result indicated that rebuilding social trust following cooperative failures may be a lengthy process. To enable producers in the hemp sector to have a say in the market, increase their competitive and bargaining power, and achieve a sustainable structure, action must be taken to establish an organization by capitalizing on producers’ strong willingness to organize.