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Poverty is one of the important subjects that come into question in the world in the last decade. Poverty affects people directly or indirectly. Poverty begins to constitute most important problem of community and economic life in Turkey. Because of development in economy, fluctuations, shocks and commitments to international agriculture politics (World Bank, WTO, IMF practices) and politics that put into practice after 1980s have effected and continue to effect agriculture sector in Turkey. From now on, agricultural politics are determined by international organizations and companies. Politics that are put in practice for agriculture, price interventions, changes in support politics, privatization, reduce in input supports, to open out to international markets have mostly influenced small agricultural enterprises and landless. According to results of General Agriculture Census (2001), there are 3.020.000 agricultural enterprises in Turkey and 83 % of them are smaller than 10 hectares. In addition to this, 30% of agricultural population consists from landless. The most effected parts are landless and small agricultural enterprises because of practices such as sugar law, tobacco law, and change in support politics that result in international agricultural politics. This process brings about gradually increase and deepen in poverty in rural area with migration, unemployment and income distribution problems at national level. International agricultural politics mostly affect sugar and tobacco producers because of sugar and tobacco are the most important agricultural products in Turkey. Nearly 1 million sugar and tobacco producer families and 4.5-5.0 million people employ in transportation, marketing, and processing of these products. Because of sugar and tobacco law and limitations in producing hazelnut and tea plant, nearly 1.5 million producer families and labors who are involved in related sectors have directly affected. According to Household Budget Questionnaire in 2002, 38% of total population of Turkey is living with 2 USA Dollar income. At this point, it is so important to state that, rural areas feel poverty more deeply than urban areas. In fact, poverty ratio is 43% in rural areas that means of subsistence is only agriculture. In addition to this, the rate of absolute poverty in rural areas is 3,5 times of urban areas. In this paper, definition and characteristics of poverty and rural poverty in Turkey will be dealt with and effects of international politics on rural poverty will be examined.

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This paper concentrates on the behavioral aspects of distribution channels in an export channel design from the perspective of the exporter. Based on the argument that channel conflict and satisfaction are among the major determinants of channel efficiency and performance, the perceived degrees of channel conflict and satisfaction are examined as well as the three antecedents of channel conflict, namely the channel power, cultural distance and distribution system quality, as they are regarded among major factors affecting the channel conflict. In conducting the analysis, questionnaire survey was undertaken among 30 exporter companies that are members of Ankara Chamber of Commerce and Likert scaling technique is used. The findings from the ordinary least squares (OLS) regression analysis suggest that the Turkish exporter do not regard the level of exercised power in a marketing channel system and the cultural distance between the foreign channel member' markets as important sources of conflict while the international distribution system quality seems to be perceived as a major source of channel conflict. The findings also suggest that there exists a close relationship between the perceived channel conflict and the channel members' satisfaction.