Introduction: The development of production and export of non-oil products has been considered as one of the major goals of Iran's development programs since the Islamic Revolution in 1979. In this regard, it is necessary to know the country's products and activities that have a comparative advantage and the potential to influence the global market. Nevertheless, despite the great impact of agricultural products in creating employment and income for farmers and the economic growth of countries, the issue of marketing the agricultural products in developing countries, including Iran, is currently one of the important issues that is simply given less attention in the course of the economic development of the agricultural sector. It has been taken and accepted that in the conditions of not identifying the market and ensuring the existence of demand for the goods, production has no meaning and before the production of the desired product, factors such as market efficiency and the agricultural products marketing should be examined and paid due attention. Therefore, examining the price situation of agricultural products at different levels of the market is considered as one of the most important topics in the field of market efficiency and marketing system. Among the agricultural products of the world, cherry is of great importance, so that this product has become one of the most important sources for generating income, commercial exchanges and employment for the residents of about 80 cherry-growing countries around the world.
Materials and Methods: Tucker believes that efficiency has maximum importance in marketing analysis, and profit in the marketing of a manufactured product is directly related to its efficiency. According to him, the ineffective marketing system causes high costs, large losses, destruction of products and unreasonable prices. But, on the other hand, the high efficiency of marketing causes the income of producers to increase by selling at a higher price or the satisfaction of consumers by reducing the purchase price. In this study, to investigate the efficiency of the cherry product market in Urmia County of Iran, first, by using visual marketing attraction indicators, the market situation was revealed and presented in each of the channels facing the producer, followed by using the indicators of the share of market factors in the final price of the product, the market margin, the coefficient of marketing costs and the benefit-cost ratio, the ‘market efficiency’ of the cherry product in Urmia County was analyzed.
Results and Discussion: Examining the share of production factors in the final price of the product in the market showed that, on average, in the total of four analyzed channels, the share of the producer, wholesaler, retailer and exporter in the final price of the product was 50.55, 22.62, 5.79 and 21.04, respectively, while special processing or high marketing cost used to be rarely done by exporters, wholesalers and retailers in the market. Therefore, the producer's low share of the cherry market in Urmia can ultimately lead to a decrease in the motivation to produce this product. In the case of clustered cherry, in the two main investigated channels, the average share of the producer, wholesaler and retailer in the final price of cherries was equal to 57.33, 28.29 and 28.76, respectively, so that the high price share of wholesalers and retailers, despite their low marketing costs, has caused dissatisfaction among the producers of this product. Based on the results obtained, the highest wholesale marketing margin in single-seeded and clustered cherry cultivars was related to the producer-wholesaler-consumer channel. The highest ‘marketing expenditure coefficient’ in single-seeded cherry with 28.85 percent was related to marketing channel 2, and in the case of clustered cherries, marketing channel 1 had the highest marketing expenditure coefficient with 31.86 percent. For single-seeded cherries, the highest benefit-cost ratio with 4.26 was related to the wholesale and for producer, retailer and exporter levels, on average was 2.60, 2.81 and 1.97, respectively. For clustered cherries, the benefit-cost ratio for producer, wholesaler and retailer was calculated to be 1.8, 1.8 and 1.74, respectively.
Conclusions and Suggestions: According to the study results, the producer's economic benefits in single-seeded cherries are more than clustered cherries. Therefore, it is suggested that in the long-term plan, taking into account government incentives such as ease of access to facilities, the worn-out clustered cherry orchards should be transformed into the single-seeded cherry orchards. Also, due to the good yield rate in single-seeded cherry orchards, there would be less concern about the repayment of facilities in this type of cherry. In addition, due to the existence of significant benefits in the export channels of single-seeded cherry products, it is suggested to pave the ground for empowering production cooperatives in the region, so that these cooperatives can form the core of the single-seeded cherry exports, aiming at obtaining more benefits for the producer.