Socio Economic Drivers of Vegetable Farming in Kalpitiya
Virajith Kuruppu, Nadeera De Silva, Jagath Edirisinghe, Lahiru Udayanga, Radhika Gimhani and Indika Herath
Abstract
Background: 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. Farmers cultivate a wide array of vegetables even without assessing the suitability of those crops, creating sustainability issues in the long run. Investigating reasons for such practices is vital to recognize possible root causes of these crop choices. Hence, the current study was conducted to identify key socio-economic determinants of farmers, which affect the choice of vegetable crops.
Methods: Study adopted exploratory research methods. A sample of 130 vegetable farmers in Kalpitiya Divisional Secretariat were selected randomly for the study. A pre-tested structured questionnaire and focus group discussions were deployed to gather data. Multinomial Logistic Regression (MLR) was employed to elicit the relationship between the choice of crop and selected socio-economic variables.
Results: Farmers tend to select Pumpkin aiming a higher selling price per unit over Beet (P<0.05) and Cabbage (P<0.01). However, farmers tend to select Beet (P<0.05) and Cabbage (P<0.01) aiming a higher yield prospect over Pumpkin. Interestingly, female farmers (P<0.01) tend to select Pumpkin over Beet due to easiness in harvesting. Farm gate prices and the average yield are the main deciding factors to select a particular vegetable crop by a farmer. Also, short harvesting cycles in these crops mitigate market and production risk to a certain degree.
Conclusions: Creating better market linkages with sufficient information could be a possible solution to introduce alternative agricultural activities among farmers in order to create sustainable farming practices within the agrarian community in Kalpitiya.
Keywords: Kalpitiya, Production Choice, Socio-Economic Drivers, Vegetable Cultivation