The Use of Digital Marketing Channels and Potential in Family Farms Producing Urfa Cheese: An Assessment in the Context of New Trends and Technologies

Elif Tuba Salman; Gönül Sevinç

doi:10.31015/2025.si.22

The Use of Digital Marketing Channels and Potential in Family Farms Producing Urfa Cheese: An Assessment in the Context of New Trends and Technologies

Abstract

This study analyzes the attitudes, knowledge levels, and usage potential of family farms producing Urfa cheese towards digital marketing channels. Face-to-face interviews were conducted with 100 family farms in Şanlıurfa province using snowball sampling. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, Mann-Whitney U, and Kruskal-Wallis tests. Key findings reveal that while 64% of producers desire online sales, 57% lack sufficient digital marketing knowledge. Social media usage is widespread (83%), yet significant disparities exist based on age and education. Younger producers (≤39 years) demonstrate substantially higher digital marketing knowledge than older producers (≥51 years). Age and education emerge as the most significant determinants of digital marketing knowledge. Major challenges include inadequate storage facilities (58%) and limited out-of-province sales (38%), resulting in a 70–90% price gap between producers and retail outlets. The study recommends age- and education-differentiated digital marketing strategies, cooperative-based digital platforms, targeted infrastructure investments, and comprehensive training programs to support digital transformation across all producer segments.

Keywords

Digital marketing, Urfa cheese, Family farms, Traditional food products, Rural development

Supporting Institution

This research was supported by the Scientific Research Projects Unit of Harran University.

Project Number

24046

Ethical Statement

Approved by the Social and Human Sciences Ethics Committee of Harran University (Approval No: 2024/79, Date: 15.03.2024).

References

Ahmed, I., Salam, S., & Adib, S. S. (2024). Insights into cheese marketing in Bangladesh: Marketing cost, margin, and efficiency. Sumerianz Journal of Business Management and Marketing, 7(4), 74–79. https://doi.org/10.47752/sjbmm.74.74.79
Altunışık, R., Coşkun, R., Bayraktaroğlu, S., & Yıldırım, E. (2020). Sosyal bilimlerde araştırma yöntemleri SPSS uygulamalı (10th edn). Sakarya Yayıncılık.
Altuntaş, A., & Gülçubuk, B. (2014). Yerel kalkınmada yaygınlaşan bir araç olarak geleneksel gıdalar ve geleneksel gıda mevzuatının yaygınlaştırılabilirliği. Journal of Agricultural Faculty of Gaziosmanpaşa University, 31(3), 72–80. https://dergipark.org.tr/en/pub/gopzfd/issue/63590/950951
Arief, A. S., Putri, S. E., Suroso, A., Syakhrani, A. W., & Rahmini, N. (2021). Digital technology management challenges in marketing local farm products in developing countries: Analysis of international publication gindings. Jurnal Iqra’ : Kajian Ilmu Pendidikan, 6(2), 96–107. https://doi.org/10.25217/ji.v6i2.1378
Aydoğdu, M. H., Sevinç, M. R., & Cançelik, M. (2021). A research on the perceptions of cotton producers to form a producers’ union in Şanlıurfa—Turkey. Journal of Ekonomi, 3(1), 5–8. https://dergipark.org.tr/en/pub/ekonomi/issue/53787/724692
Baltar, F., & Brunet, I. (2012). Social research 2.0: Virtual snowball sampling method using facebook. Internet Research, 22(1), 57–74. https://doi.org/10.1108/10662241211199960
Beninger, S., Ajjan, H., Mostafa, R. B., & Crittenden, V. L. (2016). A road to empowerment: Social media use by women entrepreneurs in Egypt. International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business, 27(2–3), 308–332. https://doi.org/10.1504/IJESB.2016.073987
Binboğa, G., Tekün, O. B., Abay, C., & Kart, M. Ç. Ö. (2024). Çiftçilerin Bilgi Teknolojisi Kullanımı: İzmir İli Örneği. Tarım Ekonomisi Dergisi, 30(1), 17–25. https://doi.org/10.24181/tarekoder.1380528
Borychowski, M., Stępień, S., Polcyn, J., Tošović-Stevanović, A., Ćalović, D., Lalić, G., & Žuža, M. (2020). Socio-economic determinants of small family farms’ resilience in selected Central and Eastern European countries. Sustainability, 12(24), 10362. https://doi.org/10.3390/su122410362
Cesaroni, F. M., Demartini, P., & Paoloni, P. (2017). Women in business and social media: Implications for female entrepreneurship in emerging countries. African Journal of Business Management, 11(14), 316–326. https://doi.org/10.5897/AJBM2017.8281

Chiu, Y.-W. (2024). The knowledge gaps in social media marketing for the agriculture industry. International Food and Agribusiness Management Review. https://doi.org/10.22434/ifamr1135
Christensen, C. (1997). The innovator’s dilemma: When new technologies cause great firms to fail (1st edn). Harvard Business Review Press.
Daigle, K., & Heiss, S. (2021). Perceptions of social media use among U.S. women farmers. Journal of Applied Communications, 105(1), 1–21. https://doi.org/10.4148/1051-0834.2346
Duru, S., Hayran, S., & Gül, A. (2021). Evaluation of production and export potential of traditional foods in Turkey. Journal of Agricultural Faculty of Bursa Uludag University, 35(2), 439–449. https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/bursauludagziraat/issue/65978/811856
Eren, G., & Gülçubuk, B. (2023). Dünyanın ve Türkiye’nin ortak geleceğinin bir girişimcilik kaygısı: Aile çiftçiliği. EUropean Journal of Managerial Research (EUJMR), 7(13), 101–111. https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/eujmr/issue/82027/1410431
Field, A. P. (2018). Discovering atatistics using IBM SPSS statistics (5th edn). SAGE.
Fox, P. F., McSweeney, P. L. H., Cogan, T. M., & Guinee, T. P. (2000). Fundamentals of cheese science (1st edn). Springer.
Güllü, M. (2022). Sütün simyası: Türkiye’de peynir ve peynir çeşitleri. In Y. Oğan (Ed.), Gastronomi Alanında Tematik Araştırmalar-I (1st edn, pp. 47–55). Çizgi Kitabevi.
Güneş, E., Şireli, T., Dellal, G., Alpas, H., Budak, Ş., Aydemir, S., Alçar, Ö., Akkaya, S., & Mail, S. (2022). 2021 Süt raporu dünya ve Türkiye’de süt sektörü istatistikleri (1st edn). Ulusal Süt Konseyi.
Gürsakal, N. (2014). Çıkarımsal istatistik (6th edn). Dora.
Hastaoğlu, E., Erdoğan, M., & Işkın, M. (2021). Gastronomi turizmi kapsamında Türkiye peynir çeşitliliği haritası. Atatürk Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü Dergisi, 25(3), 1084–1113. https://doi.org/10.53487/ataunisosbil.958028
Heckathorn, D. D. (2011). Comment: Snowball versus respondent-driven sampling. Sociological Methodology, 41(1), 355–366. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9531.2011.01244.x
Kanellos, N., Karountzos, P., Giannakopoulos, N. T., Terzi, M. C., & Sakas, D. P. (2024). Digital marketing strategies and profitability in the agri-food industry: Resource efficiency and value chains. Sustainability, 16(14), 5889. https://doi.org/10.3390/su16145889
Keskin, G., Tapkı, N., & Dağıstan, E. (2021). Üniversite öğrencilerinin geleneksel gıda farkındalığı üzerine bir araştırma. Mustafa Kemal Üniversitesi Tarım Bilimleri Dergisi, 26(3), 565–575. https://doi.org/10.37908/mkutbd.952129
Kızılaslan, N., & Ünal, T. (2015). Tarımsal Pazarlamada Alternatif Pazarlama Ağı Olan Elektronik Ticaretin (E-Ticaret) SWOT Analizi ile Değerlendirilmesi. Türk Tarım – Gıda Bilim ve Teknoloji Dergisi, 3(7), 537–544.
Kruskal, W. H., & Wallis, W. A. (1952). Use of ranks in one-criterion variance analysis. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 47(260), 583–621. https://doi.org/10.2307/2280779
Kuşat, N. (2012). A study based on the role of traditional food products on regional development and innovation characteristics of traditional food products: Example of Afyon. Journal of Management and Economics, 19(2), 261–275. https://dergipark.org.tr/en/pub/yonveek/issue/13697/165785
Lorcu, F. (2020). Örneklerle veri analizi SPSS uygulamalı (2nd edn). Detay Yayıncılık.
Mann, H. B., & Whitney, D. R. (1947). On a test of whether one of two random variables is stochastically larger than the oher. The Annals of Mathematical Statistics, 18(1), 50–60. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2236101
Mert, M. (2016). SPSS STATA yatay kesit veri analizi bilgisayar uygulamaları (1st edn). Detay Yayıncılık.
Moreno-Ortiz, C. a, Peterson, D. j, Collart, A. J., Downey, Seal, S., & Gallardo, R. (2021). Small farmers’ use of social media and other channels for marketing their agricultural products. The Journal of Extension, 59(4), Article 19. https://doi.org/10.34068/joe.59.04.19
Narın, M., & İnanöz, N. (2016). The impact of local food sproducts on rural development: A pilot study in Savastepe/Sarıbeyler. International Journal of Social and Economic Sciences, 6(2), 81–88. https://ijses.org/index.php/ijses/article/view/196
Nogueira, T. D. S., Mouro, V. A., Siqueira, K. B., & Goliatt, P. V. Z. C. (2022). Analysis of the Brazilian Artisanal Cheese market from the Perspective of social networks. In A. Abraham, N. Gandhi, T. Hanne, T.-P. Hong, T. N. Rios, & W. Ding (Eds), Intelligent Systems Design and Applications (pp. 900–909). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-96308-8_84
Ozcan, T., Yılmaz-Ersan, L., Keser, R. A., Eren, O., Aksoz, D., & Kıyma, B. (2025). Geographically indicated cheeses from thrace to Anatolia. In T. Ozcan (Ed.), Cultural, geographic and nutritional perspectıives on sustainable foods (1st edn, pp. 9–45). UBAK publishing house.
Öztürk, Ş., Nas, F., Öztürk, P., İçöz, E., Çalış, F., Özdemir, S., & Kaygısız, E. (2009). Küresel ve ulusal politikaların yerel tarım üzerindeki etkisi: Muğla köyleri örneği. Gaziantep Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi, 8(1), 157–176. https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/jss/issue/24247/257093
Porter, M. E. (1985). The competitive advantage: Creating and sustaining superior performance (1st edn). Free Press.
Ravi, S., & Rajasekaran, Sr. C. (2023). A perspective of digital marketing in rural areas: A literature review. International Journal of Professional Business Review, 8(4), e01388–e01388. https://doi.org/10.26668/businessreview/2023.v8i4.1388
Rogers, E. M. (2003). Diffusion of innovations (5th edn). Free Press.
Sevinç, M. R. (2021). Farmers’ perception of agricultural cooperatives: The case of Şanlıurfa, Turkey. Ciência Rural, 51(3), e20200445. https://doi.org/10.1590/0103-8478cr20200445
Shekhar, S. K., & Kandoth, S. (2024). The transformative impact of digital marketing on family business: A perspective article. Science Talks, 9, 100310. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sctalk.2024.100310
Singh, R., & Sharma, S. (2025). Farmer’s perspectives on use of social media for marketing of agricultural products. Journal of Agribusiness in Developing and Emerging Economies. https://doi.org/10.1108/JADEE-06-2024-0208
Tabachnick, B. G., & Fidell, L. S. (2019). Using multivariate statistics (7th edn). Pearson.
Turan, M., & Tatar, A. M. (2022). An evaluation on the current state of water buffalo breeding in Diyarbakır, identification of problems and solutions. International Journal of Agriculture Environment and Food Sciences, 6(1), 141–151. https://doi.org/10.31015/jaefs.2022.1.19
Unay-Gailhard, İ., & Brennan, M. A. (2023). Young Farmers in “The New World of Work”: The contribution of new media to the work engagement and professional identities. Rural Sociology, 88(2), 426–460. https://doi.org/10.1111/ruso.12481
Vasumathi, P., & Arun, C. J. (2021). Young farmers’ intention to use social media in marketing agro products: A conceptual framework. Indian Journal of Economics and Business, 20(2), 359–370. https://www.ashwinanokha.com/resources/ijeb%20v20-2-24.%20ijeb.pdf
Venkatesh, V., & Morris, M. G. (2000). Why don’t men ever stop to ask for directions? Gender, social influence, and their role in technology acceptance and usage behavior. MIS Quarterly, 24(1), 115–139. https://doi.org/10.2307/3250981
Vogeler, I. (1981). The myth of the family farm: Agribusiness dominance of U.S. agriculture (1st edn). Routledge.
Waters, J. (2015). Snowball sampling: A cautionary tale involving a study of older drug users. International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 18(4), 367–380. https://doi.org/10.1080/13645579.2014.953316
Yağar, F., & Dökme, S. (2018). Niteliksel araştırmaların planlanması: Araştırma soruları, örneklem seçimi, geçerlik ve güvenirlik. Gazi Sağlık Bilimleri Dergisi, 3(3), 1–9. https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/gsbdergi/issue/39953/474327
Yavuz, F., & Dilek, Ş. (2019). Türkiye Tarımına Yeniden Bakış (1st edn). SETA.
Yılmaz, D. İ. (2025). Çiftçilerin Tarımsal E-Ticarete Yönelik Tutumları: Şarköy İlçesi Örneği. Turkish Journal of Agriculture - Food Science and Technology, 13(s2), 3508–3517. https://doi.org/10.24925/turjaf.v13is2.3508-3517.8068
Zghurska, O., Fedorchenko, A., Larina, Y., Yerankin, O., Dyma, O., & Avramchuk, L. (2019). Determinative role of using digital marketing tools for the agriculture development. Journal of Hygienic Engineering and Design, 28, 75–81. https://keypublishing.org/jhed/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/06.-Full-paper-%D0%9Eksana-Zghurska.pdf

Details

Primary Language

English

Subjects

Farm Enterprises, Agricultural Policy, Marketing in Agricultural Management

Journal Section

Research Article

Authors

Elif Tuba Salman ^*
0009-0003-3673-6079
Türkiye

Gönül Sevinç
0000-0001-6322-8844
Türkiye

Publication Date

December 28, 2025

Submission Date

November 9, 2025

Acceptance Date

December 16, 2025

Published in Issue

Year 2025 Volume: 9 Number: Special

DOI

https://doi.org/10.31015/2025.si.22

IZ

https://izlik.org/JA56XU46CE

APA

Salman, E. T., & Sevinç, G. (2025). The Use of Digital Marketing Channels and Potential in Family Farms Producing Urfa Cheese: An Assessment in the Context of New Trends and Technologies. International Journal of Agriculture Environment and Food Sciences, 9(Special), 142-152. https://doi.org/10.31015/2025.si.22

AMA

1.Salman ET, Sevinç G. The Use of Digital Marketing Channels and Potential in Family Farms Producing Urfa Cheese: An Assessment in the Context of New Trends and Technologies. int. j. agric. environ. food sci. 2025;9(Special):142-152. doi:10.31015/2025.si.22

Chicago

Salman, Elif Tuba, and Gönül Sevinç. 2025. “The Use of Digital Marketing Channels and Potential in Family Farms Producing Urfa Cheese: An Assessment in the Context of New Trends and Technologies”. International Journal of Agriculture Environment and Food Sciences 9 (Special): 142-52. https://doi.org/10.31015/2025.si.22.

EndNote

Salman ET, Sevinç G (December 1, 2025) The Use of Digital Marketing Channels and Potential in Family Farms Producing Urfa Cheese: An Assessment in the Context of New Trends and Technologies. International Journal of Agriculture Environment and Food Sciences 9 Special 142–152.

IEEE

[1]E. T. Salman and G. Sevinç, “The Use of Digital Marketing Channels and Potential in Family Farms Producing Urfa Cheese: An Assessment in the Context of New Trends and Technologies”, int. j. agric. environ. food sci., vol. 9, no. Special, pp. 142–152, Dec. 2025, doi: 10.31015/2025.si.22.

ISNAD

Salman, Elif Tuba - Sevinç, Gönül. “The Use of Digital Marketing Channels and Potential in Family Farms Producing Urfa Cheese: An Assessment in the Context of New Trends and Technologies”. International Journal of Agriculture Environment and Food Sciences 9/Special (December 1, 2025): 142-152. https://doi.org/10.31015/2025.si.22.

JAMA

1.Salman ET, Sevinç G. The Use of Digital Marketing Channels and Potential in Family Farms Producing Urfa Cheese: An Assessment in the Context of New Trends and Technologies. int. j. agric. environ. food sci. 2025;9:142–152.

MLA

Salman, Elif Tuba, and Gönül Sevinç. “The Use of Digital Marketing Channels and Potential in Family Farms Producing Urfa Cheese: An Assessment in the Context of New Trends and Technologies”. International Journal of Agriculture Environment and Food Sciences, vol. 9, no. Special, Dec. 2025, pp. 142-5, doi:10.31015/2025.si.22.

Vancouver

1.Elif Tuba Salman, Gönül Sevinç. The Use of Digital Marketing Channels and Potential in Family Farms Producing Urfa Cheese: An Assessment in the Context of New Trends and Technologies. int. j. agric. environ. food sci. 2025 Dec. 1;9(Special):142-5. doi:10.31015/2025.si.22

Abstracting & Indexing Services

Google Scholar | Crossref DOI Registry

All content published in this journal is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
Authors retain copyright of their work and grant the journal a non-exclusive right to publish, reproduce, and distribute the articles within an open-access framework.

Web: dergipark.org.tr/jaefs E-mail: editorialoffice@jaefs.com Phone / WhatsApp: +90 850 309 59 27

The Use of Digital Marketing Channels and Potential in Family Farms Producing Urfa Cheese: An Assessment in the Context of New Trends and Technologies

The Use of Digital Marketing Channels and Potential in Family Farms Producing Urfa Cheese: An Assessment in the Context of New Trends and Technologies

Abstract

Keywords

Supporting Institution

Project Number

Ethical Statement

References

Details

Primary Language

Subjects

Journal Section

Authors

Publication Date

Submission Date

Acceptance Date

Published in Issue

DOI

IZ

Cite

Abstracting & Indexing Services

© International Journal of Agriculture, Environment and Food Sciences