Smallholder Agriculture in Developing and Emerging Economies: The Case of Sri Lanka

H. S. R. Rosairo ()
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H. S. R. Rosairo: Sabaragamuwa University of Sri Lanka

A chapter in Sustainable Food Value Chain Development, 2023, pp 259-293 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Smallholder farmers in Sri Lanka are engaged in plantation crops, non-plantation crops or livestock sectors. Tea, rubber, coconut, sugarcane, vegetables, fruits, paddy, broiler chicken, ornamental fish, and prawn culture are quite prominent smallholdings sectors in the country. Smallholder agriculture in Sri Lanka faces a range of challenges, emanating from natural environment as well as the business environment that can determine its performance. The place of smallholder agriculture in rural as well as urban economies and its impact on food security, poverty alleviation, good health and well-being of people are important. Trade plays a crucial role in Sri Lanka in making food products available to consumers everywhere. It has the ability of ensuring food security. There have been recent trends in the trading of agricultural products in Sri Lanka. The food security situation was crucial during the recent pandemic of COVID 19. Agricultural production and trade were affected severely causing temporary food insecurity during the early stages of the pandemic in Sri Lanka, mainly due to disruption in the village collection systems. However, trading mechanisms which were not popular during the pre-pandemic era, such as local mobile selling, hawkers, door-to-door selling, and road-side selling, were adopted by smallholder farmers themselves and small-scale village traders during the pandemic. Vulnerabilities in the production of food and the changes in the policy environment have an impact on food trade. Contract farming plays an important role in reducing some vulnerabilities in smallholder agriculture in Sri Lanka. Smallholder farmer institutions in Sri Lanka are mainly a vehicle for smallholder farmers to access modern markets in collaboration with agribusiness partners. Farmer cooperatives, agrarian and Mahaweli farmer organizations, farmer companies, and tea smallholders’ development societies are some smallholder farmer institutions established in Sri Lanka. Smallholder farmer institutions in Sri Lanka could perform better if they avoided some of the common inherent problems they display. This chapter provides six general recommendations for the establishment of stronger and sustainable smallholder farmer institutions.

Keywords: Smallholder farmer; COVID-19; Farmer institutions; Collective action; Food security; Poverty alleviation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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DOI: 10.1007/978-981-19-6454-1_13

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