How productive are rice farmers in Sri Lanka? The impact of resource accessibility, seed sources and varietal diversification

Kanesh Suresh; Clevo Wilson; Uttam Khanal; Shunsuke Managi; Samithamby Santhirakumar

doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2021.e07398

How productive are rice farmers in Sri Lanka? The impact of resource accessibility, seed sources and varietal diversification

Heliyon. 2021 Jun 24;7(6):e07398. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2021.e07398. eCollection 2021 Jun.

Authors

Kanesh Suresh^{1

2}, Clevo Wilson¹, Uttam Khanal³, Shunsuke Managi⁴, Samithamby Santhirakumar⁵

Affiliations

¹ School of Economics and Finance, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, QLD 4000, Australia.
² Discipline of Economics, Eastern University, Vantharumoolai, Chenkalady, Sri Lanka.
³ Department of Jobs, Precincts, and Regions, Agriculture Victoria, Horsham, VIC 3400, Australia.
⁴ Urban Institute & Department of Civil Engineering, Kyushu University, 744 Motooka, Nishi-ku, Fukuoka, 819-0395, Japan.
⁵ Department of Economics and Statistics, South Eastern University, Sri Lanka.

Abstract

This paper assesses the impact of resource accessibility, seed sources and varietal diversification on the production efficiency of Sri Lankan rice growers using farm and household level survey data. The empirical results show that there are opportunities for average Sri Lankan rice farmers to further improve production efficiency by up to 30%. Among the variables, those related to resource accessibility, age, migration, income sources and agricultural training are all found to affect production efficiency. Furthermore, we find that households relying only on their own saved seeds are less efficient compared to those who had purchased seeds from markets. In addition, this study indicates that varietal diversification significantly reduces production efficiency.

Keywords: Determinants; Rice farmers; Sri Lanka; Stochastic frontier analysis; Technical efficiency.