Evaluation of the Adoption Behavior of Barn Automation Technology in Flue Cured Tobacco Industry in Sri Lanka
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Date
2011
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Uva Wellassa University of Srilanka
Abstract
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Tobacco is a well-known profitable cash crop cultivated in different areas of Sri Lanka. Curing considered as the one of the major process in primary processing of tobacco. Curing of tobacco is done in barns. It was stated that stabilization of the barn in given temperature till end of each stage is extremely important to obtain desired characteristic. There are lots of drawbacks observed in manual barn controlling. To overcome these constraints after several years of successful experimentation one farmer introduced an automated furnace in year 2001. Introducing of an automated furnace was recognized as a revolutionary change by the experts of the tobacco industry. Therefore company expected to grater adoption rate with in a shorter period. Population of barn owners in flue cured tobacco industry is about nearly 2000 (BAT leaf system). However, the automated furnace has only adopted in 54 barns up to now. Therefore even after four years of implementation the expected progress in adoption to the technology has not met. Therefore this study was conducted to evaluate the different dimension of adoption behavior and identifying the determinants of non-adopter’s intention to use the automation technology.
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Keywords
Food Science, Bioprocess Technology, Agriculture, Biotechnology