Detection of Tea Agricultural Areas and Tea Gardens Subject to Pruning in Turkey Using Remote Sensing Method (Example of Rize and Trabzon Provinces)
Muzaffer SÜNER
Agriculture employs a significant part of the population, produces essential foods for nutrition, provides input to the industrial sector, creates demand for industrial products, contributes to exports through traded products, and constitutes a significant part of the country’s income. In the Eastern Black Sea region, tea plant cultivation, where a large part of the population is employed, emerges in this context. Our country ranks 8th in the world in terms of tea production area and 5th in dried tea production. In our country, tea production is carried out in licensed areas in accordance with the Decision of the Council of Ministers by 214 thousand producers on an area of 821 thousand decares in the provinces of Artvin, Giresun, Ordu, Rize and Trabzon. In our country, ÇAYKUR (General Directorate of Tea Enterprises) is responsible for the continued development of tea production, determination of tea areas, licensing of tea gardens, monitoring of tea pruning areas, tea purchasing, processing and evaluation of purchased tea, etc. tasks are carried out.
Within the scope of the Decision of the Council of Ministers published in the Official Gazette dated 27 April 2012 and the Communiqué on Renewing the Licenses of Producers Who Cultivate Tea in Tea Agricultural Areas and Issuing Licenses to Those Who Establish Tea Gardens Without Obtaining a License, published in the Official Gazette dated 5 February 2013; By detecting tea gardens in tea farming areas by remote sensing method, matching them with land registry records and granting/renewing their licenses, tea gardens licensed within the scope of the Decision on Compensation of Income Loss Suffered by Producers Due to Teayards Subjected to Pruning for the Purpose of Supplying Quality Tea Leaves, published in the Official Gazette dated 28 December 2011. It was aimed to identify the tea gardens that were subjected to pruning.
In this study, the provinces of Rize (Çayeli, Fındıklı, Kendirli, Güneysu, Güneyce, Hemşin, Çamlıhemşin) and Trabzon (Başköy-Köprübaşı, Uğurlu-Dernekpazarı, Ormanseven, Ballıca, Hayrat, Çaykara) were selected as the study area and the study was carried out in line with the above-mentioned purpose has been made. In order to detect tea agricultural areas and tea gardens subject to pruning in Turkey, instead of field studies with crowded teams in the current practice, the remote sensing method is to detect these areas without being affected by the negative conditions created by climate and topography, healthy analysis of the data with geographical information systems and sustainable management has been discussed in detail.
