[Pistacia Vera Marketing Economic Study in Hama Governorate)

The research aimed to explore the marketing of Pistachio. Verain Syria 2010 by focusing on investigating a sample of pistachio. verafarmers in the Morik area. The present study also concentrated on nearly all the merchants of pistachio. Verain the only two markets of pistachio in Syria: Aleppo Market and Morik Market. Aleppo Market includes 12 merchants that deal with buying, selling, exporting and importing Aleppo pistachio as well as a variety of nuts. Morik Market contains 26 merchants that deal with buying and selling, exporting and importing only Aleppo Pistachio. More emphasis was on understanding the marketing functions of pistachio. vera, its marketing channels as well as the exported and imported quantities in stock. It has been discovered that the percentage of the lands that grow pistachio .vera in Morik has reached 73,5% and more than 80 % belongs to the farmers themselves. Interestingly, it was also found out that irrigation, fertilization and control could have a positive effect on the production. The merchants of pistachio. verausually packed the green pistachio within cardboard boxes, each including 25kg. On the other hand, the husked pistachio was packed within nylon bags or sacks, each including 50kg.It is worth mentioning that merchants sell such quantities to the sweet shops or toasters of nuts. Other merchants exported pistachio overseas, emphasizing that the exported quantities reached 6765 ton in 2010 resulting in the rise of the local prices. Yet, the imported quantities of husked pistachio, which were about 595 ton, had a negative impact on the local prices. Marketing routes of green pistachios, known as fustuq halabi, in Syria fall into several categories. The first is the routes of marketing domestic pistachios which comprise marketing channels of green pistachios where the farmer is responsible for most of the marketing operations including sorting, grading, packing and transferring the products from the farm to the market. The second is the manufacturing route which is managed by the farmer who is responsible for drying and peeling the pistachios or cracking them to extract the pulp and sell it to the trader, or by the trader takes the responsibility of the previous operations to sell peeled pistachios to roast houses, nut shops, consumers or other traders. As for the pulp, it is sold to confectionaries, other traders or consumers. The third route is the exporting channel where the trader exports green pistachios, peeled pistachios and pulps outside Syria. This channel derives its importance from its role in supporting the trade balance, providing foreign currency and raising the prices of domestic pistachios. As for the marketing routes of imported pistachios, they are managed by the traders also (noting that the importing and exporting of green pistachios / fustuq halabiusually takes place via the private sector) The Summary IIwhere they import only peeled pistachios and pulps and sell them to roast houses, confectionaries, consumers or other traders. It was concluded that 80.8% of Mork traders are responsible for peeling and drying pistachios, whereas the remaining others are responsible for cracking pistachios to get the pulp when the pistachiosare not of a good quality. As for Aleppo traders, they peel, crack and dry pistachios which are of a low quality and sell them at a low price or else they do not buy such pistachios. These traders sell stored quantities of dried pistachios (peeled pistachios and pulp) during festive periods (when the prices go up) and also when there is a ban on importing pistachios from producers outside the country and in the seasons of winter and spring (when there is a drop in supply). Dealers in markets set the prices based on supply and demand, and these prices are not the same in all shops of the market. They also differ by the market (it was observed that the prices of pistachios in Aleppo are higher than those in Mork reaching an average price of 141.33 SP per Kilo for the former compared with 139.04 SP for the latter in 2010. On the other hand, the average price of the pulp in Mork was higher than that in Aleppo. It is worth mentioning that there are two kinds of pulp: the pulp of unripe pistachios (usually used in ice cream products and it has the highest price among all other types of pulp) and standard pulp which is used in different desserts. It was concluded that the marketing margin of exported pulp is the highest among all other types of pistachios (green pistachios, peeled pistachios, pulp, green exported pistachios, exported peeled pistachios, imported pistachios and imported pulp), followed by the marketing margin of imported pulp, peeled exported pistachios, and green exported pistachios, respectively. This highlights the importance of exporting whether in terms of the traders' profit in the two markets of green pistachios or in terms of its support of the national economy. The marketing efficiency of green pistachios (fustuq halabi) is high in view of the few operations performed on pistachios, the short distance between production places and the market as well as selling the largest quantities of pistachios immediately after collecting them. The marketing efficiency of pulp has reached 98.98% in Aleppo and 97.22% in Mork, followed by the marketing efficiency of peeled pistachios and the marketing efficiency of green pistachios which has reached 88.44% in Aleppo and 89.71% in Mork. The merchants faced many challenges, such as the quick damage of green fruits and plenty of financial liquidity and imported quantities.