Examining the Market Orientation of Vegetable Farmers in Uva Province, Sri Lanka
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Date
2020
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
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Publisher
Uva Wellassa University of Sri Lanka
Abstract
Sri Lanka has a long history of cultivating vegetables. There are two types of vegetables
cultivating in Sri Lanka namely upcountry vegetables and low country vegetables which
are varied according to agro-ecological adaptability. In the country, most of the small
scale and medium scale farmers are involved in vegetable cultivation. The market
orientation is the understanding of customers’ wants and needs and meeting them
profitably. To become market-oriented, the vegetable farmers have to meet the customers
and to be educated about their requirements. But practically there is less possibility for
vegetable farmers to meet the buyers due to the number of intermediaries in the vegetable
supply chain and farmers are rarely practicing direct marketing. In this context, there is a
suspicion that whether the vegetable farmers have a proper understanding of customer
requirements. Accordingly, this research was designed to identify the factors affecting the
market orientation where the market orientation of vegetable farmers was measured using
the MKTOR scale. A pre-tested structured questionnaire was used in the study and 123
farmers from the upcountry and 141 farmers from the low country were randomly
interviewed in their fields. Multiple linear regression was employed in data analysis.
According to regression results, machinery availability, financial availability, attitudes
towards market orientation, subjective norms about market orientation and the perceived
behavioural control for market orientation significantly affected on the market orientation
of upcountry vegetable farmers and land size of cultivation, attitude towards market
orientation, subjective norms about market orientation and the perceived behavioural
controls for market orientation significantly identified as factors affecting the market
orientation of low country vegetable farmers in the Uva province.
Keywords: Market orientation, Vegetable farmers, Attitudes, Subjective norms, Perceived
behavioural controls, MKTOR scale
Description
Keywords
Agriculture, Marketing, Vegetable Cultivation