Abstract
The Sri Lanka government is promoting the development of agriculture sector with the slogan of Let us grow more to uplift the nation. Therefore, this study was carried out to analyse the growth performance of rice sector, and to identify the appropriate model to predict the future trend of the sector in Sri Lanka. The study was mainly done based upon the secondary data. The growth performance was analyzed by considering mainly four variables such as sown extent, harvested extent, total production and productivity. Then, behaviour of different variables was tested by using scatted plot diagram with time. Based on the behaviour of the variable, different time series (TS) models were tested. Sown extent and harvested extent have not shown a strong relationship with time. Over the years average sown ex-tent and harvested extent were 858.28 and 813.37 ha thousand, respectively. But total production (thousand Mt) and productivity (kg per ha) have increased significantly with time. Therefore, the responsible factor to increase the total rice production was increasing the productivity. Cubic model was the most suitable to predict the total production and productivity which were Y = 1557.82 + 173.52t - 11.17t 2 + 0.24t 3 (r 2 = 89.51) and Y = 2227.67+ 210.13t - 11.19t 2 + 0.22t 3 (r 2 = 95.20) respectively. In this context, it is possible to meet future demand for rice through increasing the land productivity by adopting the best field practices. Key words: Model; Production; Productivity; Rice DOI: 10.4038/tare.v12i2.2793 Tropical Agricultural Research & Extension 12(2): 2009 pp.71-76
Highlights
The Sri Lanka government is promoting the development of agriculture sector with the slogan of “Let us grow more to uplift the nation”
Performance of cultivated extent, harvested extent, rice production and productivity In Sri Lanka, rice is grown under a wide range of physical environments such as different elevations, soils and hydrological regimes
It means that Sri Lanka has maximally used the suitable land for rice cultivation
Summary
The Sri Lanka government is promoting the development of agriculture sector with the slogan of “Let us grow more to uplift the nation”. Agriculture has been the backbone of Sri Lankan economy with one-third of the rural population dependent on agriculture It contributes about 12.1 % of the country’s GDP and 32.7 % of the total employment (Central Bank 2008). Rice is the main crop cultivated by the majority of farmers in rural areas and it is the staple food of the 18.6 million inhabitants of Sri Lanka. With the present population growth rate of 1.2 %, slightly increasing per capita consumption, requirements for seed, and for wastage in handling, Sri Lanka needs more than 4 million tons of paddy by the year 2010. This study was carried out to analyze the growth performance of rice sector in Sri Lanka, and to identify the appropriate model to predict the future trend on sown extent, harvested extent, total production and productivity of the rice sector
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