Energy and economic analysis of sweet cherry production in Turkey: A case study from Isparta province Vecdi Demircan a , Kamil Ekinci b, * , Harold M. Keener c , Davut Akbolat b , Caglar Ekinci d a Faculty of Agriculture, Department of Agricultural Economics, Suleyman Demirel University, Isparta 32260, Turkey b Faculty of Agriculture, Department of Agricultural Machinery, Suleyman Demirel University, Isparta 32260, Turkey c Department of Food, Agricultural, and Biological Engineering, Ohio Agricultural Research Centre, The Ohio State University, Wooster, Ohio 44691, USA d Faculty of Civil Engineering, Infrastructure and Environment Department, Bauhaus University, Germany Received 27 September 2004; received in revised form 30 March 2005; accepted 2 October 2005 Available online 10 November 2005 Abstract A survey was conducted using a face to face questionnaire with 92 sweet cherry (Prunus avium L.) producers from 10 villages in five districts of the Isparta province where there is intensive sweet cherry production. The data collected was analyzed for the energy and economics of sweet cherry production. The results showed that the most energy consuming input for the different operations investigated was chemical fertilisers (45.35%), especially nitrogen (38.05%). The energy consumption for Diesel fuel was 21.53% of the total energy input. Although chemicals for plant protection had a small portion (1.45%) of the total energy input, the use of pesticide in sweet cherry production per hectare in the Isparta province was 5.36 times higher than that of TurkeyÕs average, increasing the environmental risk problem. The energy use efficiency, defined as energy produced per unit of energy used, was 1.23. The specific energy of sweet cherry production was deter- mined to be 3163.43 MJ tonnes 1 . It was found that the direct and indirect energy inputs were 34.48% and 54.91% of the total energy input, respectively. Among the inputs, renewable energy sources constituted 16.34% of the total energy input, which was lower than that of the non-renewable resources (chemical fertilisers and Diesel fuel). The results showed that the net return from sweet cherry production in the surveyed farms was satisfactory, as demonstrated by the benefit–cost ratio of 2.53 calculated by dividing the gross value of production by the total cost of production per hectare. Ó 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Sweet cherry; Energy use efficiency; Economics; Bioenergy 1. Introduction The agriculture sector is not the largest energy consumer at the national level in Turkey. However, since agricultural production has many activities consuming energy, such as tilling, planting and weeding, irrigation, 0196-8904/$ - see front matter Ó 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.enconman.2005.10.003 * Corresponding author. Tel.: +90 246 211 1408; fax: +90 246 237 1693. E-mail addresses: kekinci@ziraat.sdu.edu.tr, kamil_ekinci@yahoo.com (K. Ekinci). Energy Conversion and Management 47 (2006) 1761–1769 www.elsevier.com/locate/enconman