Browsing by Author "Banagala, C.H.M."

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    Environmental Efficiency of Tea Production: The Case of Uva Tea Growing Region in Sri Lanka
    (Uva Wellassa University of Sri Lanka, 2020) Chathurika, T.V.L.; Gunathilaka, R.P.D.; Banagala, C.H.M.
    Sri Lanka tea industry needs to improve its productivity to remain competitive in the international tea market. Tea producers as individual decision-making units have a greater responsibility towards achieving and sustaining the required level of productivity. Many factors influence the productivity of tea producers, however, production environment characterized by the weather variables such as temperature, rainfall, and wet days are beyond the producer’s control. The analysis of these environmental factors within a frame of total factor productivity concept or environmental efficiency analysis captures the role of the production environment of the producer. Surprisingly, studies on analysing environmental efficiency as a measure of the productivity of perennial plantation commercial crop production units are seldom in the literature. Based on a monthly panel data from 12 different tea estates on the Uva region over 19 years (2000-2018), this study analyses the environmental efficiency of estate level tea production. Specifically, we use a stochastic frontier production function to reveal the total factor productivity index (TFPI) for the selected estates over 19 years and decompose to the environmental efficiency of the tea production. According to our findings, the environmental efficiency scores of estate level tea production vary from 0.86 to 1.05 over the period from 2000 to 2018. More importantly, the environmental efficiency of 14 years throughout the studied period is less than one indicating the estates of the Uva region were operating in a poor productive environment. Our findings suggest that climate change impacts tea production moreover, these environmental factors may also affect the production environment of tea plantations in other tea growing regions in Sri Lanka. Keywords: Productivity, Total Factor Productivity Index, Environmental efficiency, Plantation
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    Potential of Biofilm Biofertilizer Application in Paddy Soil Carbon Sequestration in Sri Lanka: An Economic Feasibility Analysis
    (Uva Wellassa University of Sri Lanka, 2020) Ekanayake, S.N.B.; Seneviratne, G.; Premarathna, M.; Gunathilaka, R.P.D.; Banagala, C.H.M.; Hearth, H.M.S.K.
    Anthropogenic emissions of carbon (C) to the atmosphere at higher rates have led to global warming and climate change. Soil carbon sequestration (SCS) has been recognized as the process that stores atmospheric C for a long period without escaping back to the atmosphere. Globally, expanding agricultural lands has come to play a major role in SCS in the phase of degradation of natural ecosystems like forests by deforestation, fire, etc. The objective of this study was to evaluate the potential of Biofilm biofertilizer (BFBF) application in SCS under rice cultivation. Soil stable C was estimated as sequestered soil C by using organic carbon (Walkley-Black) and oxidizable carbon in the BFBF application and the farmers’ chemical fertilizer (CF) alone application. Soil samples were collected from paddy fields in 25 representative locations in several districts of Sri Lanka in three consecutive seasons: Yala 2018, Maha 2018/19, and Yala 2019. The results showed that the SCS was significantly (p<0.05) higher in the BFBF practice in every season. This is due to increased microbial C assimilation in the root zone of soil. The BFBF practice sequestered 19 t C ha-1 year–1 over farmers’ CF practice, showing an enormous potential to gain income through soil C trading. There was also an increasing trend in the paddy grain yield up to ca. 30% under the same practice. Thus, during the next five years, if the BFBF practice would be implemented island wide, the potential income from trading C will be ca. 190 billion rupees. In conclusion, the BFBF practice can be considered as an eco-friendly and economically viable method to replace the farmers’ current practice of CF alone application. Keywords: Biofilm biofertilizer, Carbon trading, Rice cultivation, Soil carbon sequestration