Investigation of intermediary margins in the marketing of beef and lamb meat in Ankara Province, Turkey

This research was conducted to determine intermediary margins in the marketing system of slaughtering animals and meat in Ankara Province of Turkey in the form of livestock-wholesale, wholesale-retail and livestock-retail. The material of the study consists of the records of sale transactions in the livestock and meat exchanges subject to Ankara Commodity Exchange. Intermediary margins (2008-2011) in marketing were calculated with current and fixed prices in percentages, making use of the producer price index (PPI) and consumer price index (CPI) of the Turkish Statistical Institute with 2003 set as the base year to rule out the effect of inflation. The study revealed that average livestock-wholesale marketing margins of beef were 18.96%, 19.94%, 16.69%, 11.25%, average wholesale-retail marketing margins of beef were 38.94%, 34.85%, 32.41%, 35.75%, and average livestockretail marketing margins of beef were 47.71%, 45.34%, 40.99%, 39.48% respectively with fixed prices. The calculations based on monthly averages of livestock-retail intermediary margins showed that the share of producer in the retail beef price varied in a wide range, between 47.05% and 66.32%. On the other hand, a high level of correlation was found between retail beef prices and live cattle, wholesale beef prices, livestock-wholesale, wholesaleretail and livestock-retail marketing margins (p<0.01). In this study, average current livestock-wholesale margins were 18.41%, 26.99%, 18.55%, 20.08%, wholesale-retail margins were 27.72%, 27.89%, 29.70%, 28.50% and livestock-retail margins in lamb meat marketing were 38.23%, 45.12%, 39.83%, 40.13% respectively. In the same period, the share transferred to the producer through current retail sales prices of lamb meat was 59.17% as average. The correlation was found significantly as r=+0.936 and r=+0.960 (P<0.01) between fixed and current intermediary margins for livestock-retail and fixed and current retail lamb prices in marketing. As a result, due to the high level intermediary margins of beef and lamb meat marketing, red meat prices is increasing in Turkey. The possible reduction of the intermediary margins at each stage in marketing structure will provide to buy meat from the appropriate prices by the consumers and to contribute market regulation.