Transition towards Production Orientation to Market Orientation: A Case Study of Organic farmers' in Kandy District

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Date
2018
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Uva Wellassa University of Sri Lanka
Abstract
Commercialization has been identified as an available strategy for up-scaling the farming, where the success is largely depending upon their degree of market orientation. Though the organic farming is a demanding notion in a green economy, farmers are low profit earners comparatively to the other industries in Sri Lanka. Therefore, this study attempted to investigate the present status of market orientation of organic farmers opposed to production orientation. The study was conducted among purposively selected 40 organic farmers in Kandy district, using a Likert scale structured survey questionnaire. The questionnaire was consisted of number of production and marketing criteria and farmers' decision making in production and marketing was evaluated by the study. A score was assigned from the scale varying from 1 to 5 for both orientations. Further, regression analysis was adopted to identify the significant factors for farmers' business orientation. Findings revealed that 60% of organic farmers were culminated in production orientation without consider on being market oriented. This brings about the need for placing a greater emphasis on inculcating market oriented mind sets among farmers. Moreover, gender (G), civil status (C), land area (L) and income from organic farming (1) were identified as the significant factors influencing their decision of business orientation (MO = 64.588 - 11.635 G - 16.021 C + 5.857 L +8.388 I + 9.45181). The study recommends disseminating knowledge on market availability for organic foods towards farmers; provide adequate guidance and support for organic manure preparation as stimulus to switch the organic farmers towards market orientation. Keywords: Market orientation, Organic farming, Production orientation
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Agriculture, Marketing
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