A Study on the Factors Affecting the Dairy Policy Opinions of the 2013 Turkey National Dairy Summit Participants

This study has three main objectives. Firstly, to put forward 2013 Turkey National Dairy Summit participants' opinions about milk policy; secondly, to determine the possible factors affecting these opinions and finally; to put forth the solutions which were suggested by the participants for the determined problems. To achieve these goals, 83 participants were interviewed in the dairy summit. 43% of participants were agricultural engineers, 19% food engineers, 14% veterinarians, and 24% of them were from other occupations. The opinions of the participants on current milk policies in Turkey have been categorized as; 'effective', 'undecided','ineffective', 'not effective at all'. When responses of 'effective' were compared to the other three opinion groups using multinomial logistic regression, the results showed that factors such as, participants' being an agricultural engineer, a veterinary practitioner, their education levels and their involvement in milk related issues within their occupation have distinguishing characteristics. Among the participants, 40% were of the opinion that the subsidiaries should be subject to milk quality and hygiene standards. Study findings indicated that a milk strategy plan should be prepared for the milk market to gain stability in the long term. To be effective in the market, this plan also should include regional feed and production strategy and should be prepared together with dairy farmer organizations.