Jagath Chaminda Edirisinghe

Wayamba University of Sri lanka · Agribusiness Management

This paper applied a stochastic frontier model to measure total factor productivity growth, technical efficiency change, and technical change in tea production in the estate sector in Sri Lanka. Monthly data from 35 tea estates relating to the period 2005 to 2019 were used. Two functional forms with two distributional assumptions were tested. A Tra...

Research on the impact of government policy on tea sector productivity is scarce in the literature. This study attempts to fill this gap by investigating the direct or indirect impact of existing broad policy statements on the long and short-run performance (Total Factor Productivity) of the corporate tea sector as an initiative. Monthly panel data...

Background: The higher education was significantly influenced by the COVID pandemic within many developing countries, including Sri Lanka, necessitating to adopt more E-Learning opportunities. Therefore, this study was conducted to characterize the perceptions of Sri Lankan undergraduates to accept E-Learning in higher education, during the COVID...

Turmeric (Curcuma longa) is a high-value spice and a medicinal crop in Sri Lanka, catering to both domestic and international markets. However, the value generated has not been appropriately distributed across the value chain. Thus , the primary objective of this study is to identify and map the actors in the value chain. Furthermore, the profitabi...

Although Moringa oleifera is identified as a nutrient dense, super food with an increasing demand in the international market, it is recognized as an underutilized plant in Sri Lanka with vast potential to tap into the international market while improving rural income. Thus, the objective of this study is to identify the existing potential of the p...

This study was carried out with the objectives of modeling and simulating the impacts of such policies on household food consumption in a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) modelling framework. In examination of the impact of key policy tools hitherto employed by the government of Sri Lanka by CGE analysis reveals that there is a distributional i...

This study was carried out to assess the possibilities of the Rubber Farming based Agro-Tourism (RFAT) in the smallholder rubber sector in Moneregala. The study covered 222 rubber smallholdings in eight rubber growing DS divisions and was conducted in 2019 through a questionnaire survey and focus group discussions. Stratified random sampling techni...

More farmers have shifted to vegetable farming from other crops in recent years, cultivating a wide array of vegetables even without assessing the production and marketing in agriculture, creating sustainability issues in the long run. This study aimed to identify key socio-economic determinants of farmers that affect the choice of the vegetable cr...

Different agricultural practices along with many food utilization patterns could be observed around the globe. Among those, vegetables have become a vital nutritious meal and a dietary habit in most Asian countries, including Sri Lanka. In recent years more and more farmers have shifted towards vegetable farming from other agricultural activities....

Sri Lankan tea industry is confronting the danger of losing key markets on the grounds of exceeding the Maximum Residual Levels (MRLs) in chemicals permitted by the European Union. This study assesses the impact of Non-tariff measures on Sri Lankan tea exports because of MRLs stipulated for the pesticide, Endosulfan. This study employs a Bayesian v...

Overuse of fertilizer has long been identified as a major issue in many parts of the world, including Sri Lanka. Sandy regosol soil and the shallow groundwater table in Kalpitiya, has aggravated the impacts of extensive fertigation, raising doubts on the long-term socioeconomic and environmental sustainability of intensive agricultural systems of t...

Purpose: Identification of consumer preferences is important in designing products. Producers will immensely benefit by knowing them to capture the market share. In light of this, we evaluate consumers’ stated preferences for various attributes of four popular fruits: grapes, sweet orange, pear and pomegranate. Research Method: We run a Rank Order...

This study assesses the green chili markets in Sri Lanka from 2012 to 2016 by examining the degree of market integration in the country. The analysis was carried out in the first differenced form, which conformed to the Augmented Dickey-Fuller tests of stationary. The pairwise comparison between Dambulla Dedicated Economic Centre (DDEC) and 25 othe...

Food security is a condition related to the supply of food and individuals’ access to it. Food access and availability highly depend on price of food products. Therefore, this research looks at the impact of food price and other impediments over past years on access to food. We use a panel data set from 71 countries covering the period from the yea...

Taking its overall importance to the economy, as a whole, including food and nutrition security and better performance of the food supply chain from producer to the consumer, the successive governments tend to take a variety of initiatives to upkeep the sustainability of agri-food supply system, but the scarcity of valid and reliable information on...

This study aims to examine the price behavior of several key types of marine fish consumed by Sri Lankans which are commonly available in the Colombo fish market using time series econometric modeling techniques. It is based on the claim that fish prices have increased overtime and are frequently subjected to price fluctuations. Seasonal Autoregres...

Food security is a condition related to the supply of food and individuals' access to it. Food access and availability highly depend on price of food products. Therefore, this research looks at the impact of food price and other impediments over past years on access to food. We use a panel data set from 71 countries covering the period from the yea...

Balanced diet plays a key role in maintaining a healthy lifestyle. The current study identifies the acceptance towards a balanced diet among youth and how it is influenced by gender, educational level and being a vegetarian. Primary data were collected by a questionnaire based survey from June to September, 2017 from a stratified random sample of 2...

Functional ingredients included in a healthy diet are demonstrated to have physiological benefits and/or reduce the risk of chronic diseases beyond basic nutritional function. On this rationale, the specific objectives of this study were to examine empirically the determinants of perceived health status of a consumer and to examine extent to which...

Poster for the Australian Conference on Science and Mathematics Education

Composting, as widely believed, is a solution to the ever-increasing solid waste management problem around the world. Most countries convert urban solid waste into compost because of its expected use in productive agriculture. With rising urban waste around the country, the production of compost will also rise in times to come. However, the success...

The impact of individual market-based, regulatory and liability incentives on food safety responsive behaviour of firms is assessed using the Sri Lankan tea and dairy processing firms’ motivation to adopt Hazard Analysis & Critical Control Points (HACCP) food safety metasystem as the case. A series of face-to-face interviews were conducted with the...

Considerable specification choice confronts countable adoption investigations and there is need to measure, formally, the evidence in favor of competing formulations. This article presents alternative countable adoption specifications—hitherto neglected in the agricultural-economics literature—and assesses formally their usefulness to practitioners...

Agro-biodiversity acts as a key environment resource that enhances the sustainability in any given eco-system. Much of the agro-biodiversity remaining in situ today is found on the semi-subsistence farms, small scale farms or home gardens. Labeled “home gardens” as a reflection of their institutional identity during the collectivization period, the...

The purpose of this study was to examine empirically, using food safety and quality attributes presented in the Caswell’s Classification as the analytical framework, whether a consumer’s decision to purchase a food product at a given point of time, in this case Yoghurt and Full Cream Milk Powder, is predominately governed by a 'single' common attri...

Whilst being accountable for an increasing trend in mortality and morbidity, Chronic Kidney Disease of unknown aetiology (CKDu) has become a severe burden in Sri Lanka. Even though there is no sound evidence to clarify the aetiology of CKDu, it will be worthwhile to seek out the possible measures to minimize the prevalence of the disease. Hence, th...

Due to high prevalence of dietary diseases and malnutrition in Sri Lanka, it is essential to assess food consumption patterns. Because pulses are a major source of nutrients, this paper employed the Linear Approximation of the Almost Ideal Demand System (LA/AIDS) to estimate price and expenditure elasticities for six types of pulses, by utilizing t...

Smallholder farmers’ household asset based wealth indicators purport to show long-run economic wellbeing. This paper argues that such wellbeing is contingent on the ‘livelihood strategies’ of households and specifically focuses on the impact of off-farm income strategies on wealth. Using a sample of 4861 Sri Lankan agricultural households, a set of...

Technical Efficiency of Small-Scale Marine Fishing Households: Evidence from a Stochastic Frontier Analysis by Ann Fernando, Udith Jayasinghe-Mudalige, Jagath Edirisinghe, Menuka Udugama, Keminda Herath and Sashika Guruge Dept. of Agribusiness Management, Faculty of Agriculture & Plantation Management Wayamba University of Sri Lanka, Makandura, Gon...

Soil conservation is one pivotal activity in Good Agricultural Practices. Thus, diffusing such activities among farming community is prudent. In spite of the fact that soil conservation choices are believed to be highly correlated in space, this aspect is seldom addressed in the literature. We take up this issue and attempt to model soil conservati...

This study examines the economic research problem of whether the food and agriculture sector of Sri Lanka has played its intended role in the process of socio-economic development. The Myint Hypothesis was used to develop the analytical framework, which states that, as a country passes through the process of structural transformation (i.e. the agri...

Most firms that process rubber in Sri Lanka do not comply with national water pollution control standards. The present command and control system fails in the face of a slow enforcement process, and also because of the nature of 'older' production units, many of which date back to colonial times. This study seeks to estimate a pollution tax that co...

This study investigates extent to which the HACCP certified agri-food processing firms in Sri Lanka have "realized" (i.e. post-adoption experience) those "intended" (i.e. pre-adoption expectations) benefits upon having a food safety and quality metasystem in place. First, a series of in-depth interviews were undertaken with Quality Assurance/Genera...

It was observed that even in the times of higher prices some smallholder rubber producers remain poor. The rea-son for this variation in income is thought to be risks associated with rubber production. Therefore, this study investigated the risks related to labour and weather taking a sample of 500 smallholder farmers from the Kalu-tara district. A...

Sri Lanka spends around US$ 400 million a year on the importation of milk powder. Government has identified this drain of foreign exchange resources which flows out of the country and as relief measures, various policies have been implemented to regulate dairy sector towards development, especially to increase domestic production. This study was ai...

Internationally recognized quality standards are obtained by many firms with the intention of enhancing their corporate reputation. A question prevails whether this decision ultimately addresses the establishment's main financial objective of shareholder wealth maximization. The objective of this study is to examine the impact on the business perfo...

The purpose of this study was to investigate how environmental stringency affects pollution intensive manufacturing industry exports. Further, this study aimed to find how exports of these polluting industries take place when the exporting country belongs to a certain trading group. An augmented gravity model was estimated separately for six pollut...

The study hypothesized that increased variability in paddy yields is related with increased risk and investigate the impact of climatic and production factors on risk. A production function was estimated with related risk properties to see how variation in climatic variables and production factors affects the probability distribution of paddy yield...

Meager production of higher quality sheet rubber is an issue which has implications on the smallholder's income as well as on the rubber products industry in the country. Although, this problem has been there for some time, it is increasingly becoming grave in the face of a vibrant rubber products manufacturing industry. However, no systematic stud...

The study hypothesized that increased variability in paddy yields is related with increased risk and investigate the impact of climatic and production factors on risk. A production function was estimated with related risk properties to see how variation in climatic variables and production factors affects the probability distribution of paddy yield...

In most smallholder agricultural production activities, farmers make choices about the types of output that they sell. This choice is influenced by various market and non-market factors, including the decisions of other farmers in the neighbourhood. Taking a sample of smallholder rubber farmers from Sri Lanka, this research is conducted to study th...

The common understanding by the research community is that farmers like to adopt high-yielding varieties. While this is true in general, we often see that some high-yielding varieties are not accepted by farmers. The reasons for such can be many. In this study, an attempt is made to verify whether there are any other traits that farmers seek in a p...

This study was carried out to analyze the present level of technical efficiency of rubber smallholders in Gampaha district and primary data were collected from 100 smallholder rubber farmers. Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) was utilized to estimate technical efficiency levels. A double censoring Tobit model was estimated to assess factors affecting...

Farmers’ individual choices relating to agronomic practices are influenced by socio economic factors related to the farmer and his family as well as physical factors relating to the farm. Many studies that investigate these choices fail to recognise the importance of neighbours’ influence on decision making. This research attempted to determine whe...