Analytical Study of The Role Of Agricultural Marketing Extension In The Marketing of Olive Crop in Lattakia Governorate

The olive tree is one of the oldest trees known to man and he planted it for thousands of years and used it in the oil industry, and the eastern Mediterranean region, especially Syria, is its original home, and olives represent a strategic commodity whose production should be taken care of, improving its quality, and following the best services, agricultural and extension methods to obtain the large quantity and quality The high level so that it matches international specifications and has a market for it. The research was carried out on olive farmers in Lattakia Governorate in the Lattakia and Haffa regions for the year (2018-2019-2019-2020). A random sample was taken with 217 farmers from the targeted extension units according to the relative importance of the number of olive farmers belonging to those units, which reached 10 extension units from Out of 43 units, in addition to a sample of the 75 extension workers concerned with the olive extension program. The method of descriptive and quantitative analysis of the data collected through a questionnaire designed for this purpose was adopted, in addition to secondary data issued by the Ministry of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform.The aim of this research is to study the extent of farmers ’knowledge of the information and marketing services provided to the crop before and after harvesting, and to study the relationship between services and marketing information and the economic and social characteristics of the study sample, and to know the marketing extension services provided by the Agricultural Extension Directorate, and the most important marketing problems that farmers suffer from.With regard to the extent of farmers ’knowledge of the information and marketing services provided to the crop before and after harvesting, the results showed that 67.3% of farmers have an average degree of knowledge, 17.1% have good knowledge, while 15.7% have poor knowledge, and in terms of implementation, we found that 46.5% have their degree of implementation. Medium and 45.2% their degree of implementation is weak, while 8.3% of them have a high degree of implementation of their knowledge, while 58.1% of farmers have an average degree of knowledge in harvesting techniques and beyond, 30.4% have poor knowledge, while 11.5% have a good degree of knowledge. For the knowledge of harvesting and beyond, we found that 53% have an average degree of implementation, 39.2% have a weak degree of implementation, while 7.8% have a high degree of implementation of their knowledge.The level of implementation of the extension activities related to the olive harvest was good about the diseases that afflict the olives and the fertilizers that should be applied to the olive tree and their quantities. As for the activities related to controlling the diseases that afflict the olives, the harvesting techniques and tools, the storage of the fruits, the times of pressing and the packaging packages and the correct oil storage conditions were moderate, while the activities were Related to harvest times, marketing channels and market prices are weak by the extension unit.The pests that affect the olive crop, such as the olive fruit fly, the eye of the peacock, and others, the difficulty of controlling these pests, bargaining, and the high costs of harvesting, transportation, fertilizers and agricultural wages are among the most important problems faced by the farmers of the study area.The results of the Chi Square showed that there is a significant relationship between age and the degree of knowledge of farmers in olive production techniques, and this can be explained by the fact that different levels of age differ with farmers' service knowledge, while there is no statistically significant relationship between the rest of the factors (gender, educational level, profession , Marital status) and the degree of knowledge of the farmers in the service of the olive harvest.The results of the Chi Square showed that there is a significant relationship between the farmers ’dependence on agricultural work only as a profession and the degree of farmers’ knowledge in harvesting and beyond, while there are no significant differences between (gender, age, marital status, educational level) and the degree of farmers ’knowledge in harvesting and so on. Beyond.The study showed that there is no relationship between the yield of olive oil and the factors affecting it from the service and marketing information systems, which indicates the weakness of the agricultural and marketing information system and thus the weakness of agricultural extension, and this reflects the absence of agricultural marketing extension.The level of implementation by the extension units for their service tasks in relation to the production and marketing of the olive crop and olive oil, including guidance and training seminars, marketing information and others, was always in the largest proportion in relation to marketing products and advisory seminars about the olive crop, the date of harvesting, its techniques, the purification and sorting of the fruits and the conditions for preserving the oil, while there are services It is never provided to farmers, such as marketing information about the market, prices, supply, demand, and marketing pathways for products, and this indicates weak marketing guidance in the study area.The most important recommendations reached by the study are to raise the level of farmers ’knowledge of olive production techniques, harvesting techniques, and beyond, in order to increase the percentage of their implementation of that knowledge by increasing extension activities related to the olive harvest, which is reflected in improving the quality of the produced oil and improving its specifications so that it has drainage markets for it, and trying Raise the degree of communication between farmers and extension units, and work on conducting training courses to qualify extension cadres with regard to agricultural marketing extension.