Evaluation of financial resources and credit usage situations in dairy cattle enterprises: example of Elaz？？ province

In this study, it was aimed to determine the sources of financing of dairy cattle breeders enterprises in Elaz？？ province and to determine the relations between various enterprises features and financial resources. A total of 50 dairy cattle enterprises under the member of the Elaz？？ Cattle Breeders Associations, which is determined by snowball sampling method, constitute the sample of the study. The data collected by the survey method are presented in the form of mean, frequency and percentage distribution according to their characteristics. The differences between the two independent study groups were analyzed by Student's t-test and the Mann Whitney-u test. The relationship between financial sources and various enterprises characteristics was evaluated by Fisher's exact test and chi-square test. According to the analysis results; it was determined that the breeders had livelihoods on average 28.76 ± 1.88 years and that the average of cattle assets was 33.26 ± 4.01. The participants of 74% reported that they were unable to accumulate capital with the income they had earned from livestock, and 96% reported that they were paying their debts, which they could not pay in time, by selling/cutting their animals. In the financing of capital, there was a significant difference between the average of total cattle and annual milk production (p=0.042) when 44% of enterprises used credits in addition to their own resources, compared to those who did not use credits. The dependence of credit usage among management characteristics such as number of employees (p=0.033) and insurance of animals (p=0.019) was found to be statistically significant. As a result, it has been determined that the majority of enterprises use bank credits in the financing of capital. The number of animals in the enterprises and the capital requirement increase together with the increase of milk production. As a matter of fact, it has been determined that the number of the livestock enterprises and the amount of milk production are higher than the ones that do not use credits. On the other hand, the increase in the number of people working in enterprises and the growth of the herd increase the need for credit use. Daily cattle enterprises working with low profit margin, insufficient capital accumulation in enterprises and the payment of overdue debts tosell/cut off the cattles causes enterprises to lose their production tools and sustainability in production