Factors Affecting Rice Farmers’ Choice of Formal Seed

Abstract

Stagnation of rice productivity is a major issue in Sri Lanka because expansion of land extent is not possible due to reach of its maximum level. Moreover, it is urgently need to release some rice lands for cultivation of non-rice crops to meet their demand. Among other factor seed quality greatly influences on rice productivity. Despite the seeds supplied through formal sources such as government and private seed producers are certified for their quality, use of uncertified seeds sourced from informal sources such as farmer-saved seeds which are not certified has been a major problem resulting low productivity. Understanding how farmers choose between formal and informal seed sources is important to promote the use of certified quality seeds among farmers to enhance the productivity. Therefore, this study aims to identify the factors that determine the choice of formal seeds. A total of randomly selected 59 rice farmers in Nachchaduwa settlement of Anuradhapura district was interviewed using a pretested questionnaire. Tabular analysis and binary logistic regression were used to analyze the data. The tabular analysis showed that a 43% of the sampled farmers used informal seeds due to the unavailability of formal seeds in the farming communities. The price of seeds (p<0.05) and the distance to the source (p<0.05) from the farmer's dwelling have significantly and positively affected the choice of formal seeds over informal seeds. Farmers are more likely to travel far in searching and pay more for formal seeds. This type of behavior reflects the quality consciousness of farmers. To improve the uptake the access to formal rice seeds needs to be increased. Since private or government suppliers of formal seeds are less available in the settlement, individuals and farmer organizations should be incentivized to produce certified formal seeds.